fHE  H  >PPY  FAMILY 
ON  THE  STAIRCASE 

THE    CHASTE  WIFF! 
NOC1  URNE 


FROfiT  THE  LIBRARY"  OF 


ANNE  DILLON 


THE    AUTHOR    OF 
.  "NOCTURNE." 

According  to  Floyd  Dell,  Frank 
Swinnerton  goes  on  a  tear  every 
now  and  then.  Not  the  sort  of  a 
tear  one  usually  imagines — but  a 
literary  tear  that  lasts  for  weeks. 
In  his  capacity  as  a  literary  ad- 
viser to  a  London  publisher  Mr. 
Swinnerton  occupies  a  desk  in  the 
publishing  house.  For  months  he 
will  appear  regularly — then  he  will 
disappear  utterly.  For  weeks  there 
will  be  .no  word  from  him.  His 
work  will  pile  up— no  one  will 
know  where  he  Is.  Suddenly  he 
will  reappear.  Where  has  he  been, 
what  has  he  been  doing?  Merely 
writing  a  new  novel.  His  literary 
spree  has  lasted  just  long  enough 
to  present  the  world  with  a  work 
as  excellent  as  "Nocturne"  or 
"Coquette."  The  morning-after 
sensation  is  far  more  pleasant  for 
him — -he  has  £one  farther  in  the 
literary  world  aud  added  another 
masterpiece  to  his  collection. 

Arnold  Bennett,  when  speaking 
of  the  way  that  Swinnert 
time  to  write  his  novels,  said: 
"Publishing  Is  only  a  side  line  of 
his.  He  still  writes  for  himself 
in  the  evenings  and  during  \ 
ends.  The  office  never  sees  him 
on  Saturdays.  Perhaps  the  most 
astonishing  feature  of  his  publish- 
ing work  is  the  fact  that  questions 
as  to  fonts  of  type,  width  of  mar- 
gins, disposition  of  title  pages,  tint 
and  texture  of  bindings  really  do 
interest  him.  Misprints,  when  he 
has  read  the  proofs  himself,  give 
him  neuralgia." 


"  You  know,  Arnold \he  achieves  a  perfection  in  NOCTURNE  that 
you  and  I  never  get  within  Streets  of." — H.  G.  WELLS  to  ARNOLD  BENNETT 


authe 
nertoi 
word 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Helen  A.  Dillon 


much  of  his  \ 

more  importan 

served  their  pi.-  ,  ----  ...  -..-  ,,  w.  ,vt  «n 

no  more  than  fading  names.    Mr.  Swinnerton 

has  written  four  or  five  other  novels  before 

this  one,  but  none  of  them  compare  with  it  in 

quality. 

"Jenny  and  Emmy  are  realities  inside  and 
out;  imaginative  creatures  so  complete  that 
one  can  think  with  ease  of  Jenny  ten  years 
hence  or  of  Emmy  as  a  baby.  .  .  .  Above 
these  figures  looms  the  majestic  invention  of 
Pa."_#.  G.  Wells. 

The  events  described  occur  in  the  space  of  a 
single  night  from  6  p.m.  till  the  next  morn- 
ing. Five  or  six  characters,  men  and  women, 
each  play  a  definite  part  in  a  story  which 
moves  with  dash  and  spirit 


NOCTURNE 


FRANK  SWINNERTON 


NOCTURNE 


BY 
FRANK    SWINNERTON 

ATTTHOB   OF   "THE   CHASTE   WIFE,"   "ON   THB 

STAiBCASE,"  "THE  HAPPY  FAMILY,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1*17, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DOBAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


College 

Library 


39  Tin 


TO 

MARTIN  SECKER 

THIS  "NOCTURNE" 


1060980 


INTRODUCTION  BY  H.  G.  WELLS 

"  'But  do  I  see  afore  me,  him  as  I  ever  sported  with  in  his 
times  of  happy  infancy?    And  may  I — may  11' 
"This  May  I,  meant  might  he  shake  hands?" 

— DICKENS,  Great  Expectations. 

I  DO  not  know  why  I  should  be  so  overpower- 
ingly  reminded  of  the  immortal,  if  at  times 
impossible,  Uncle  Pumblechook,  when  I  sit  down 
to  write  a  short  preface  to  Mr.  Swinnerton's  Noc- 
turne. Jests  come  at  times  out  of  the  backwoods 
of  a  writer's  mind.  It  is  part  of  the  literary  qual- 
ity that  behind  the  writer  there  is  a  sub-writer, 
making  a  commentary.  This  is  a  comment  against 
which  I  may  reasonably  expostulate,  but  which 
nevertheless  I  am  indisposed  to  ignore. 

The  task  of  introducing  a  dissimilar  writer  to 
a  new  public  has  its  own  peculiar  difficulties  for 
the  elder  hand.  I  suppose  logically  a  writer 
should  have  good  words  only  for  his  own  imi- 
tators. For  surely  he  has  chosen  what  he  con- 
siders to  be  the  best  ways.  What  justification 
has  he  for  praising  attitudes  he  has  never  adopted 
and  commending  methods  of  treatment  from 
which  he  has  abstained?  The  reader  naturally 
receives  his  commendations  with  suspicion.  Is 
this  man,  he  asks,  stricken  with  penitence  in  the 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

flower  of  his  middle-age?  Has  he  but  just  dis- 
covered how  good  are  the  results  that  the  other 
game,  the  game  he  has  never  played,  can  give? 
Or  has  he  been  disconcerted  by  the  criticism  of  the 
Young?  The  Fear  of  the  Young  is  the  beginning 
of  his  wisdom.  Is  he  taking  this  alien-spirited 
work  by  the  hand  simply  to  say  defensively  and 
vainly:  "I  assure  you,  indeed,  I  am  not  an  old 
fogy;  I  quite  understand  it."  (There  it  is,  I 
fancy,  that  the  Pumblechook  quotation  creeps  in.) 
To  all  of  which  suspicions,  enquiries  and  objec- 
tions, I  will  quote,  tritely  but  conclusively:  "In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  Mansions,"  or  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  Kipling: 

"There  are  five  and  forty  ways 
Of  composing  tribal  lays 
And  every  blessed  one  of  them  is  right." 

Indeed  now  that  I  come  to  think  it  over,  I  have 
never  in  all  my  life  read  a  writer  of  closely  kin- 
dred method  to  my  own  that  I  have  greatly  ad- 
mired; the  confessed  imitators  give  me  all  the 
discomfort  without  the  relieving  admission  of 
caricature;  the  parallel  instances  I  have  always 
wanted  to  rewrite;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  for 
many  totally  dissimilar  workers  I  have  had  quite 
involuntary  admirations.  It  isn't  merely  that  I 
don't  so  clearly  see  how  they  are  doing  it,  though 
that  may  certainly  be  a  help;  it  is  far  more  a 


INTRODUCTION  » 

matter  of  taste.  As  a  writer  I  belong  to  one  school 
and  as  a  reader  to  another — as  a  man  may  like 
to  make  optical  instruments  and  collect  old  china. 
Swift,  Sterne,  Jane  Austen,  Thackeray  and  the 
Dickens  of  Bleak  House  were  the  idols  of  my 
youthful  imitation,  but  the  contemporaries  of  my 
early  praises  were  Joseph  Conrad,  W.  H.  Hudson, 
and  Stephen  Crane,  all  utterly  remote  from  that 
English  tradition.  With  such  recent  admirations 
of  mine  as  James  Joyce,  Mr.  Swinnerton,  Rebecca 
West,  the  earlier  works  of  Mary  Austen  or 
Thomas  Burke,  I  have  as  little  kindred  as  a  tunny 
has  with  a  cuttlefish.  We  move  in  the  same  me- 
dium and  that  is  about  all  we  have  in  common. 
This  much  may  sound  egotistical,  and  the  impa- 
tient reader  may  ask  when  I  am  coming  to  Mr. 
Swinnerton,  to  which  the  only  possible  answer  is 
that  I  am  coming  to  Mr.  Swinnerton  as  fast  as  I 
can  and  that  all  this  leads  as  straightiy  as  pos- 
sible to  a  definition  of  Mr.  Swinnerton 's  position. 
The  science  of  criticism  is  still  crude  in  its  classi- 
ficaton,  there  are  a  multitude  of  different  things 
being  done  that  are  all  lumped  together  heavily 
as  novels,  they  are  novels  as  distinguished  from 
romances,  so  long  as  they  are  dealing  with  some- 
thing understood  to  be  real.  All  that  they  have 
in  common  beyond  that  is  that  they  agree  in  ex- 
hibiting a  sort  of  story  continuum.  But  some  of 
us  are  trying  to  use  that  story  continuum  to  pre- 


*  INTRODUCTION 

sent  ideas  in  action,  others  to  produce  powerful* 
excitements  of  this  sort  or  that,  as  Burke  and 
Mary  Austen  do,  while  others  again  concentrate 
upon  the  giving  of  life  as  it  is,  seen  only  more 
intensely.  Personally  I  have  no  use  at  all  for 
life  as  it  is,  except  as  raw  material.  It  bores  me 
to  look  at  things  unless  there  is  also  the  idea  of 
doing  something  with  them.  I  should  find  a  holi- 
day, doing  nothing  amidst  beautiful  scenery,  not 
a  holiday,  but  a  torture.  The  contemplative  ec- 
stacy  of  the  saints  would  be  hell  to  me.  In  the — 
I  forget  exactly  how  many — books  I  have  written, 
it  is  always  about  life  being  altered  I  write,  or 
about  people  developing  schemes  for  altering  life. 
And  I  have  never  once  " presented"  life.  My 
apparently  most  objective  books  are  criticisms 
and  incitements  to  change.  Such  a  writer  as  Mr. 
Swinnerton,  on  the  contrary,  sees  life  and  ren- 
ders it  with  a  steadiness  and  detachment  and 
patience  quite  foreign  to  my  disposition.  He  has 
no  underlying  motive.  He  sees  and  tells.  His 
aim  is  the  attainment  of  that  beauty  which  comes 
with  exquisite  presentation.  Seen  through  his 
art,  life  is  seen  as  one  sees  things  through  a  crys- 
tal lens,  more  intensely,  more  completed,  and  with 
less  turbidity.  There  the  business  begins  and 
ends  for  him.  He  does  not  want  you  or  any  one 
to  do  anything. 
Mr.  Swinnerton  is  not  alone  among  recent  writ- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

ers  in  this  clear,  detached  objectivity.  We  have 
in  England  a  writer,  Miss  Dorothy  Richardson, 
who  has  probably  carried  impressionism  in  fiction 
to  its  furthest  limit.  I  do  not  know  whether  she 
will  ever  make  large  captures  of  the  general 
reader,  but  she  is  certainly  a  very  interesting 
figure  for  the  critic  and  the  amateur  of  fiction. 
In  Pointed  Roofs  and  Honeycomb,  for  example, 
her  story  is  a  series  of  dabs  of  intense  superficial 
impression;  her  heroine  is  not  a  mentality,  but  a 
mirror.  She  goes  about  over  her  facts  like  those 
insects  that  run  over  water  sustained  by  surface 
tension.  Her  percepts  never  become  concepts. 
Writing  as  I  do  at  the  extremest  distance  possible 
from  such  work,  I  confess  I  find  it  altogether  too 
much — or  shall  I  say  altogether  too  little? — for 
me.  But  Mr.  Swinnerton,  like  Mr.  James  Joyce, 
does  not  repudiate  the  depths  for  the  sake  of  the 
surface.  His  people  are  not  splashes  of  appear- 
ance, but  living  minds.  Jenny  and  Emmy  in  this 
book  are  realities  inside  and  out ;  they  are  imagi- 
native creatures  so  complete  that  one  can  think 
with  ease  of  Jenny  ten  years  hence  or  of  Emmy 
as  a  baby.  The  fickle  Alf  is  one  of  the  most  per- 
fect Cockneys — a  type  so  easy  to  caricature  and 
so  hard  to  get  true — in  fiction.  If  there  exists  a 
better  writing  of  vulgar  lovemaking,  so  base,  so 
honest,  so  touchingly  mean  and  so  touchingly  full 
of  the  craving  for  happiness  than  this  that  we 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

have  here  in  the  chapter  called  After  the  Theatre, 
I  do  not  know  of  it.  Only  a  novelist  who  has  had 
his  troubles  can  understand  fully  what  a  dance 
among  china  cups,  what  a  skating  over  thin  ice, 
what  a  tight-rope  performance  is  achieved  in  this 
astounding  chapter.  A  false  note,  one  fatal  line, 
would  have  ruined  it  all.  On  the  one  hand  lay 
brutality;  a  hundred  imitative  louts  could  have 
written  a  similar  chapter  brutally,  with  the  soul 
left  out,  we've  loads  of  such  "  strong  stuff"  and 
it  is  nothing ;  on  the  other  side  was  the  still  more 
dreadful  fall  into  sentimentality,  the  tear  of  con- 
scious tenderness,  the  redeeming  glimpse  of  "bet- 
ter things"  in  Alf  or  Emmy  that  would  at  one 
stroke  have  converted  their  reality  into  a  genteel 
masquerade.  The  perfection  of  Alf  and  Emmy 
is  that  at  no  point  does  a  "nature's  gentleman" 
or  a  "nature's  lady"  show  through  and  demand 
our  refined  sympathy.  It  is  only  by  comparison 
with  this  supreme  conversation  that  the  affair  of 
Keith  and  Jenny  seems  to  fall  short  of  perfec- 
tion. But  that  also  is  at  last  perfected,  I  think, 
by  Jenny's  final,  "Keith.  .  .  .  Oh,  Keith!  .  .  ." 
Above  these  four  figures  again  looms  the  majes- 
tic invention  of  "Pa."  Every  reader  can  appre- 
ciate the  truth  and  humour  of  Pa,  but  I  doubt  if 
any  one  without  technical  experience  can  realise 
how  the  atmosphere  is  made  and  completed  and 
rounded  off  by  Pa's  beer,  Pa's  needs,  and  Pa's 


INTRODUCTION  *iii 

accident,  how  he  binds  the  bundle  and  makes  the 
whole  thing  one,  and  what  an  enviable  triumph 
his  achievement  is. 

But  the  book  is  before  the  reader  and  I  will 
not  enlarge  upon  its  merits  further.  Mr.  Swin- 
nerton  has  written  four  or  five  other  novels  before 
this  one,  but  none  of  them  compare  with  it  in  qual- 
ity. His  earlier  books  were  strongly  influenced  by 
the  work  of  George  Gissing ;  they  have  something 
of  the  same  fatigued  greyness  of  texture  and  little 
of  the  artistic  completeness  and  intense  vision  of 
Nocturne.  He  has  also  made  two  admirable  and 
very  shrewd  and  thorough  studies  of  the  work 
and  lives  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  George 
Gissing.  Like  these  two,  he  has  had  great  experi- 
ence of  illness.  He  is  a  young  man  of  so  slender 
a  health,  so  frequently  ill,  that  even  for  the  most 
sedentary  purposes  of  this  war,  his  country  will 
not  take  him.  It  was  in  connection  with  his  Gis- 
sing volume,  for  which  I  possessed  some  material 
he  needed,  that  I  first  made  his  acquaintance.  He 
has  had  something  of  Gissing 's  restricted  and 
grey  experiences,  but  he  has  nothing  of  Gissing 's 
almost  perverse  gloom  and  despondency.  Indeed 
he  is  as  gay  a  companion  as  he  is  fragile.  He 
is  a  twinkling  addition  to  any  Christmas  party, 
and  the  twinkle  is  here  in  the  style.  And  having 
sported  with  him  "in  his  times  of  happy  infancy,'* 
I  add  an  intimate  and  personal  satisfaction  to  my 


INTRODUCTION 

pleasant  task  of  saluting  this  fine  work  that  ends 
a  brilliant  apprenticeship  and  ranks  Swinnerton 
as  Master.  This  is  a  book  that  will  not  die.  It 
is  perfect,  authentic,  and  alive.  Whether  a  large 
and  immediate  popularity  will  fall  to  it  I  cannot 
say,  but  certainly  the  discriminating  will  find  it 
and  keep  it  and  keep  it  alive.  If  Mr.  Swinnerton 
were  never  to  write  another  word  I  think  he  might 
count  on  this  much  of  his  work  living,  as  much 
of  the  work  of  Mary  Austen,  W.  H.  Hudson,  and 
Stephen  Crane  will  live,  when  many  of  the  more 
portentous  reputations  of  to-day  may  have  served 
their  purpose  in  the  world  and  become  no  more 
than  fading  names. 

DECEMBER,  1917 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE:  EVENING 


I.  Six   O'CLOCK 11 

II.  THIS  TREAT 43 

III.  Rows 61 

IV.  THE  WISH 79 

PART  TWO:  NIGHT 

V.  THB  ADVENTURE 1C* 

VI.  THE  YACHT ,  115 

VII.  MORTALS   135 

VIII.  PENALTIES     153 

IX.  WHAT  FOLLOWED 172 

X.  CINDERELLA    1ST 

PART  THREE:  MORNING 

XI.  AFTER  THE  THEATRE 198 

XII.    CoNBBQUEIfCM     12T 


PART  ONE 
EVENING 


CHAPTER  I:  SEX  O'CLOCK 


SIX  O'CLOCK  was  striking.  The  darkness  by 
Westminster  Bridge  was  intense;  and  as  the 
tramcar  turned  the  corner  from  the  Embankment 
Jenny  craned  to  look  at  the  thickly  running  water 
below.  The  glistening  of  reflected  lights  which 
spotted  the  surface  of  the  Thames  gave  its  rapid 
current  an  air  of  such  mysterious  and  especially 
sinister  power  that  she  was  for  an  instant  aware 
of  almost  uncontrollable  terror.  She  could  feel 
her  heart  beating,  yet  she  could  not  withdraw 
her  gaze.  It  was  nothing:  no  danger  threatened 
Jenny  but  the  danger  of  uneventful  life ;  and  her 
sense  of  sudden  yielding  to  unknown  force  was 
the  merest  fancy,  to  be  quickly  forgotten  when 
the  occasion  had  passed.  None  the  less,  for  that 
instant  her  dread  was  breathless.  It  was  the 
fear  of  one  who  walks  in  a  wood,  at  an  inexplic- 
able rustle.  The  darkness  and  the  sense  of  mov- 
ing  water  continued  to  fascinate  her,  and  she 
slightly  shuddered,  not  at  a  thought,  but  at  the 
sensation  of  the  moment.  At  last  she  closed  her 
eyes,  still,  however,  to  see  mirrored  as  in  some 
visual  memory  the  picture  she  was  trying  to  ig- 

11 


12  NOCTURNE 

nore.  In  a  faint  panic,  hardly  conscious  to  her 
fear,  she  stared  at  her  neighbour's  newspaper, 
spelling  out  the  headings  to  some  of  the  para- 
graphs, until  the  need  of  such  protection  was 
past. 

As  the  car  proceeded  over  the  bridge,  grinding 
its  way  through  the  still  rolling  echoes  of  the 
striking  hour,  it  seemed  part  of  an  endless  suc- 
cession of  such  cars,  all  alike  crowded  with  home- 
ward-bound passengers,  and  all,  to  the  curious 
mind,  resembling  ships  that  pass  rery  slowly  at 
night  from  safe  harbourage  to  the  unfathomable 
elements  of  the  open  sea.  It  was  such  a  cold  still 
night  that  the  sliding  windows  of  the  car  were 
almost  closed,  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  covered 
upper  deck  was  heavy  with  tobacco  smoke.  It 
was  so  dark  that  one  could  not  see  beyond  the 
fringes  of  the  lamplight  upon  the  bridge.  The 
moon  was  in  its  last  quarter,  and  would  not  rise 
for  several  hours ;  and  while  the  glitter  of  the  city 
lay  behind,  and  the  sky  was  greyed  with  light  from 
below,  the  surrounding  blackness  spread  creeping 
fingers  of  night  in  every  shadow. 

The  man  sitting  beside  Jenny  continued  to  puff 
steadfastly  at  his  pipe,  lost  in  the  news,  holding 
mechanically  in  his  further  hand  the  return  ticket 
which  would  presently  be  snatched  by  the  hurry- 
ing tram-conductor.  He  was  a  shabby  middle- 
aged  clerk  with  a  thin  beard,  and  so  he  had  not 


SIX  O'CLOCK  ,13 

the  least  interest  for  Jenny,  whose  eye  ~was  caught 
by  other  beauties  than  those  of  assiduous  labour. 
She  had  not  even  to  look  at  him  to  be  quite  sure 
that  he  did  not  matter  to  her.  Almost,  Jenny  did 
not  care  whether  he  had  glanced  sideways  at  her- 
self or  not.  She  presently  gave  a  quiet  sigh  of 
relief  as  at  length  the  river  was  left  behind  and 
the  curious  nervous  tension — no  more  lasting  than 
sne  might  have  felt  at  seeing  a  man  balancing 
upon  a  higk  window-sill  —  was  relaxed.  She 
breathed  more  deeply,  perhaps,  for  a  few  in- 
stants; and  then,  quite  naturally,  she  looked  at 
her  reflection  in  the  sliding  glass.  That  hat,  as 
she  could  see  in  the  first  sure  speedless  survey, 
had  got  the  droops.  "See  about  you!"  she  said 
silently  and  threateningly,  jerking  her  head.  The 
hat  trembled  at  the  motion,  and  was  thereafter 
ignored.  Stealthily  Jenny  went  back  to  her  own 
reflection  in  the  window,  catching  the  clearly- 
chiselled  profile  of  her  face,  bereft  in  the  dark 
mirror  of  all  its  colour.  She  could  see  her  nose 
and  chin  quite  white,  and  her  lips  as  part  of  the 
general  colourless  gloom.  A  little  white  brooch 
at  her  neck  stood  boldly  out ;  and  that  was  all  that 
could  be  seen  with  any  clearness,  as  the  light  was 
not  directly  overhead.  Her  eyes  were  quite  lost, 
apparently,  in  deep  shadows.  Yet  she  could  not 
resist  the  delight  of  continuing  narrowly  to  ex- 
amine herself.  The  face  she  saw  was  hardly 


14  NOCTURNE 

recognisable  as  her  own;  but  it  was  bewitchingly 
pale,  a  study  in  black  and  white,  the  kind  of  face 
which,  in  a  man,  would  at  once  have  drawn  her 
attention  and  stimulated  her  curiosity.  She  had 
longed  to  be  pale,  but  the  pallor  she  was  achieving 
by  millinery  work  in  a  stuffy  room  was  not  the 
marble  whiteness  which  she  had  desired.  Only 
in  the  sliding  window  could  she  see  her  face 
ideally  transfigured.  There  it  had  the  brooding 
dimness  of  strange  poetic  romance.  You  couldn't 
know  about  that  girl,  she  thought.  You'd  want 
to  know  about  her.  You'd  wonder  all  the  time 
about  her,  as  though  she  had  a  secret.  ...  The 
reflection  became  curiously  distorted.  Jenny  was 
smiling  to  herself. 

As  soon  as  the  tramcar  had  passed  the  bridge, 
lighted  windows  above  the  shops  broke  the  magic 
mirror  and  gave  Jenny  a  new  interest,  until,  as 
they  went  onward,  a  shopping  district,  ablaze 
with  colour,  crowded  with  loitering  people,  and 
alive  with  din,  turned  all  thoughts  from  herself 
into  one  absorbed  contemplation  of  what  was 
'  beneath  her  eyes.  So  absorbed  was  she,  indeed, 
that  the  conductor  had  to  prod  her  shoulder  with 
his  two  fingers  before  he  could  recover  her  ticket 
and  exchange  it  for  another.  ' '  'Arf  asleep,  some 
people!"  he  grumbled,  shoving  aside  the  pro- 
jecting arms  and  elbows  which  prevented  his  free 
passage  between  the  seats.  "Feyuss  please! 


<  > 


SIX  O'CLOCK  15 

Jenny  shrugged  her  shoulder,  which  seemed  as 
though  it  had  been  irritated  at  the  conductor's 
touch.  It  felt  quite  bruised.  "Silly  old  fool!" 
she  thought,  with  a  brusque  glance.  Then  she 
went  silently  back  to  the  contemplation  of  all  the 
life  that  gathered  upon  the  muddy  and  glistening 
pavements  below. 

•  • 

11 

In  a  few  minutes  they  were  past  the  shops  and 
once  again  in  darkness,  grinding  along,  pitching 
from  end  to  end,  the  driver's  bell  clanging  every 
minute  to  warn  carts  and  people  off  the  tram- 
lines. Once,  with  an  awful  thunderous  grating 
of  the  brakes,  the  car  was  pulled  up,  and  every- 
body tried  to  see  what  had  provoked  the  sense  of 
accident.  There  was  a  little  shouting,  and  Jenny, 
staring  hard  into  the  roadway,  thought  she  could 
see  as  its  cause  a  small  girl  pushing  a  perambula- 
tor loaded  with  bundles  of  washing.  Her  first 
impulse  was  pity — "Poor  little  thing";  but  the 
words  were  hardly  in  her  mind  before  they  were 
chased  away  by  a  faint  indignation  at  the  child 
for  getting  in  the  tram's  way.  Everybody  ought 
to  look  where  they  were  going.  Ev-ry  bo-dy 
ought  to  look  where  they  were  go-ing,  said  the 
pitching  tramcar.  Ev-ry  bo-dy.  .  .  .  Oh,  sick- 
ening! Jenny  looked  at  her  neighbour's  paper — 
her  refuge.  ' '  Striking  speech, ' '  she  read.  Whose  ? 


16  NOCTURNE 

What  did  it  matter?  Talk,  talk.  .  .  .  Why 
didn't  they  do  something?  What  were  they  to 
do?  The  tram  pitched  to  the  refrain  of  a  comic 
song :  ' '  Actions  speak  louder  than  words ! ' '  That 
kid  who  was  wheeling  the  perambulator  full  of 
washing.  .  .  .  Jenny's  attention  drifted  away 
like  the  speech  of  one  who  yawns,  and  she  looked 
again  at  her  reflection.  The  girl  in  the  sliding 
glass  wouldn't  say  much.  She'd  think  the  more. 
She'd  say,  when  Sir  Herbert  pressed  for  his  an- 
swer, "My  thoughts  are  my  own,  Sir  Herbert 
Mainwaring."  What  was  it  the  girl  in  One  of 
the  Best  said?  "You  may  command  an  army  of 
\  soldiers ;  but  you  cannot  still  the  beating  of  a 
Woman's  heart!"  Silly  fool,  she  was.  Jenny 
nad  felt  the  tears  in  her  eyes,  burning,  and  her 
throat  very  dry,  when  the  words  had  been  spoken 
in  the  play;  but  Jenny  at  the  theatre  and  Jenny 
here  and  now  were  different  persons.  Different? 
Why,  there  were  fifty  Jennys.  But  the  shrewd, 
romantic,  honest,  true  Jenny  was  behind  them 
all,  not  stupid,  not  sentimental,  bold  as  a  lion, 
destructively  experienced  in  hardship  and  endur- 
ance, very  quick  indeed  to  single  out  and  wither 
humbug  that  was  within  her  range  of  knowledge, 
but  innocent  as  a  child  before  any  other  sort  of 
humbug  whatsoever.  That  was  why  she  could 
now  sneer  at  the  stage-heroine,  and  could  play 
with  the  mysterious  beauties  of  her  own  reflection ; 


SIX  O'CLOCK  17 

but  it  was  why  she  could  also  be  led  into  quick 
indignation  by  something  read  in  a  newspaper. 

Tum-ty  tum-ty  tum-ty  turn,  said  the  tram. 
There  were  some  more  shops.  There  were  strag- 
gling shops  and  full-blazing  rows  of  shops. 
There  were  stalls  along  the  side  of  the  road, 
women  dancing  to  an  organ  outside  a  public- 
house.  Shops,  shops,  houses,  houses,  houses  .  .  . 
light,  darkness.  .  .  .  Jenny  gathered  her  skirt. 
This  was  where  she  got  down.  One  glance  at  the 
tragic  lady  of  the  mirror,  one  glance  at  the  rising 
smoke  that  went  to  join  the  general  cloud;  and 
she  was  upon  the  iron-shod  stairs  of  the  car  and 
into  the  greasy  roadway.  Then  darkness,  as  she 
turned  along  beside  a  big  building  into  the  side 
streets  among  rows  and  rows  of  the  small  houses 
of  Kennington  Park. 

iii 

It  was  painfully  dark  in  these  side  streets.  The 
lamps  drew  beams  such  a  short  distance  that 
they  were  as  useless  as  the  hidden  stars.  Only 
down  each  street  one  saw  mild  spots  starting  out 
of  the  gloom,  fascinating  in  their  regularity,  like 
shining  beads  set  at  prepared  intervals  in  a  body 
of  jet.  The  houses  were  all  in  darkness,  because 
evening  meals  were  laid  in  the  kitchens :  the  front 
rooms  were  all  kept  for  Sunday  use,  excepting 
when  the  Emeralds  and  Edwins  and  Geralds  and 


iS  NOCTURNE 

Dorises  were  practising  upon  their  mothers' 
pianos.  Then  you  could  hear  a  din!  But  not 
now.  Now  all  was  as  quiet  as  night,  and  even 
doors  were  not  slammed.  Jenny  crossed  the 
street  and  turned  a  corner.  On  the  corner  itself 
was  a  small  chandler's  shop,  with  " Magnificent 
Tea,  per  2/-  lb.";  "Excellent  Tea,  per  l/8d.  Ib"; 
"Good  Tea,  per  l/4d.  lb."  advertised  in  great 
bills  upon  its  windows  above  a  huge  collection  of 
unlikely  goods  gathered  together  like  a  happy 
family  in  its  tarnished  abode.  Jenny  passed  the 
dully-lighted  shop,  and  turned  in  at  her  own  gate. 
In  a  moment  she  was  inside  the  house,  sniffing  at 
the  warm  odour-laden  air  within  doors.  Her 
mouth  drew  down  at  the  corners.  Stew  to-night  1 
An  amused  gleam,  lost  upon  the  dowdy  passage, 
fled  across  her  bright  eyes.  Emmy  wouldn't  have 
thanked  her  for  that !  Emmy — sick  to  death  her- 
self of  the  smell  of  cooking — would  have  slammed 
down  the  pot  in  despairing  rage. 

In  the  kitchen  a  table  was  laid;  and  Emmy 
stretched  her  head  back  to  peer  from  the  scullery, 
where  she  was  busy  at  the  gas  stove.  She  did  not 
say  a  word.  Jenny  also  was  speechless ;  and  went 
as  if  without  thinking  to  the  kitchen  cupboard. 
The  table  was  only  half -laid  as  usual;  but  that 
fact  did  not  make  her  action  the  more  palatable  to 
Emmy.  Emmy,  who  was  older  than  Jenny  by  a 
mysterious  period — diminished  by  herself,  but 


SIX  O'CLOCK  19 

kept  at  its  normal  term  of  three  years  by  Jenny, 
except  in  moments  of  some  heat,  when  it  grew 
for  purposes  of  retort, — was  also  less  effective  in 
many  ways,  such  as  in  appearance  and  in  adroit- 
ness ;  and  Jenny  comprised  in  herself,  as  it  were, 
the  good  looks  of  the  family.  Emmy  was  the 
housekeeper,  who  looked  after  Pa  Blanchard; 
Jenny  was  the  roving  blade  who  augmented  Pa's 
pension  by  her  own  fluctuating  wages.  That  was 
another  slight  barrier  between  the  sisters.  Never- 
theless, Emmy  was  quite  generous  enough,  and 
was  long-suffering,  so  that  her  resentment  took 
the  general  form  of  silences  and  secret  breedings 
upon  their  different  fortunes.  There  was  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  about  this  difference,  and  the  say- 
ing grew  more  and  more  remote  from  explicit 
utterance  as  thought  of  it  ground  into  Emmy's 
mind  through  long  hours  and  days  and  weeks  of 
solitude.  Pa  could  not  hear  anything  besides  the 
banging  of  pots,  and  he  was  too  used  to  sudden 
noises  to  take  any  notice  of  such  a  thing ;  but  the 
pots  themselves,  occasionally  dented  in  savage 
dashes  against  each  other  or  against  the  taps, 
might  have  heard  vicious  apostrophes  if  they  had 
listened  intently  to  Emmy's  ejaculations.  As  it 
was,  with  the  endurance  of  pots,  they  mutely  bore 
their  scars  and  waited  dumbly  for  superannua- 
tion. And  every  bruise  stood  to  Emmy  when  she 
renewed  acquaintance  with  it  as  mark  of  yet  an- 


20  NOCTURNE 

other  grievance  against  Jenny.  For  Jenny  en- 
joyed the  liberties  of  this  life  while  Emmy  stayed 
at  home.  Jenny  sported  while  Emmy  was"  en- 
gaged upon  the  hideous  routine  of  kitchen  affairs, 
and  upon  the  nursing  of  a  comparatively  helpless 
old  man  who  could  do  hardly  anything  at  all  for 
himself. 

Pa  was  in  his  bedroom, — the  back  room  on  the 
ground-floor,  chosen  because  he  could  not  walk 
up  the  stairs,  but  must  have  as  little  trouble  in 
self-conveyance  as  possible, — staggeringly  mak- 
ing his  toilet  for  the  meal  to  come,  sitting  pa- 
tiently in  front  of  his  dressing-table  by  the  light 
of  a  solitary  candle.  He  would  appear  in  due 
course,  when  he  was  fetched.  He  had  been  a 
strong  man,  a  runner  and  cricketer  in  his  youth, 
and  rather  obstreperously  disposed ;  but  that  time 
was  past,  and  his  strength  for  such  pursuits  was 
as  dead  as  the  wife  who  had  suffered  because  of 
its  vagaries.  He  could  no  longer  disappear  on  the 
Saturdays,  as-  he  had  been  used  to  do  in  the  old 
days.  His  chair  in  the  kitchen,  the  horse-hair 
sofa  in  the  sitting-room,  the  bed  in  the  bedroom, 
were  the  only  changes  he  now  had  from  one  day's 
end  to  another.  Emmy  and  Jenny,  pledges  of  a 
real  but  not  very  delicate  affection,  were  all  that 
remained  to  call  up  the  sorrowful  thoughts  of  his 
old  love,  and  those  old  times  of  virility,  when  Pa 
and  his  strength  and  his  rough  boisterousness  had 


SIX  O'CLOCK  21 

been  the  delight  of  perhaps  a  dozen  regular  com- 
panions.   He  sometimes  looked  at  the  two  girls 
with  a  passionless  scrutiny,  as  though  he  were 
trying  to  remember  something  buried  in  ancient 
neglect;  and  his  eyes  would  thereafter,  perhaps 
at  the  mere  sense  of  helplessness,  fill  slowly  with 
tears,  until  Emmy,  smothering  her  own  rough 
sympathy,  would  dab  Pa's  eyes  with  a  harsh  hand- 
kerchief and  would  rebuke  him  for  his  decay. 
Those  were  hard  moments  in  the  Blanchard  home, 
for  the  two  girls  had  grown  almost  manlike  in 
abhorrence  of  tears,  and  with  this  masculine  dis- 
taste had  arisen  a  corresponding  feeling  of  power- 
lessness  in  face  of  emotion  which  they  could  not 
share.    It  was  as  though  Pa  had  become  some- 
thing like  an  old  and  beloved  dog,  unable  to  speak, 
pitied  and  despised,  yet  claiming  by  his  very 
dumbness  something  that  they  could  only  give  by 
means  of  pats  and  half-bullying  kindness.     At 
such  times  it  was  Jenny  who  left  her  place  at  the 
table  and  popped  a  morsel  of  food  into  Pa's 
mouth ;  but  it  was  Emmy  who  best  understood  the 
bitterness  of  his  soul.    It  was  Emmy,  therefore, 
who  would  snap  at  her  sister  and  bid  her  get  on 
with  her  own  food;  while  Pa  Blanchard  made 
trembling  scrapes  with  his  knife  and  fork  until 
the  mood  passed.    But  then  it  was  Emmy  who 
was  most  with  Pa;  it  was  Emmy  who  hated  him 
in  the  middle  of  her  love  because  he  stood  to 


22  NOCTURNE 

her  as  the  living  symbol  of  her  daily  inescapable 
servitude  in  this  household.  Jenny  could  never 
have  felt  that  she  would  like  to  kill  Pa.  Emmy 
sometimes  felt  that.  She  at  times,  when  he  had 
been  provoking  or  obtuse,  so  shook  with  hysteri- 
cal anger,  born  of  the  inevitable  days  in  his  so- 
ciety and  in  the  kitchen,  that  she  could  have 
thrown  at  him  the  battered  pot  which  she  car- 
ried, or  could  have  pushed  him  passionately 
against  the  mantelpiece  in  her  fierce  hatred  of  his 
helplessness  and  his  occasional  perverse  stupid- 
ity. He  was  rarely  stupid  with  Jenny,  but 
giggled  at  her  teasing. 

Jenny  was  taller  than  Emmy  by  several  inches. 
She  was  tall  and  thin  and  dark,  with  an  air  of 
something  like  impudent  bravado  that  made  her 
expression  sometimes  a  little  wicked.  Her  nose 
was  long  and  straight,  almost  sharp-pointed ;  her 
face  too  thin  to  be  a  perfect  oval.  Her  eyes  were 
wide  open,  and  so  full  of  power  to  show  feeling 
that  they  seemed  constantly  alive  with  changing 
and  mocking  lights  and  shadows.  If  she  had  been 
stouter  the  excellent  shape  of  her  body,  now  al- 
most too  thick  in  the  waist,  would  have  been  em- 
phasised. Happiness  and  comfort,  a  decrease  in 
physical  as  in  mental  restlessness,  would  have 
made  her  more  than  ordinarily  beautiful.  As  it 
was  she  drew  the  eye  at  once,  as  though  she 
challenged  a  conflict  of  will:  and  her  movements 


SIX  O'CLOCK  23 

were  so  swift  and  eager,  so  little  clumsy  or  jerk- 
ing, that  Jenny  had  a  carriage  to  command  ad- 
miration. The  resemblance  between  the  sisters 
was  ordinarily  not  noticeable.  It  would  have 
needed  a  photograph — because  photographs,  be- 
sides flattening  the  features,  also  in  some  manner 
" compose"  and  distinguish  them — to  reveal  the 
likenesses  in  shape,  in  shadow,  even  in  outline, 
which  were  momentarily  obscured  by  the  natural 
differences  of  colouring  and  expression.  Emmy 
was  less  dark,  more  temperamentally  unadven- 
turous,  stouter,  and  possessed  of  more  colour. 
She  was  twenty-eight  or  possibly  twenty-nine, 
and  her  mouth  was  rather  too  hard  for  pleasant- 
ness. It  was  not  peevish,  but  the  lips  were  set 
as  though  she  had  endured  much.  Her  eyes,  also, 
were  hard ;  although  if  she  cried  one  saw  her  face 
soften  remarkably  into  the  semblance  of  that  of 
a  little  girl.  From  an  involuntary  defiance  her" 
expression  changed  to  something  really  pathetic. 
One  could  not  help  loving  her  then,  not  with  the 
free  give  and  take  of  happy  affection,  but  with  a 
shamed  hope  that  nobody  could  read  the  conflict 
of  sympathy  and  contempt  which  made  one 's  love 
frigid  and  self-conscious.  Jenny  rarely  cried: 
her  cheeks  reddened  and  her  eyes  grew  full  of 
tears ;  but  she  did  not  cry.  Her  tongue  was  too 
ready  and  her  brain  too  quick  for  that.  Also,  she 
kept  her  temper  from  flooding  over  into  the  self- 


24  NOCTURNE 

abandonment  of  angry  weeping  and  vituperation. 
Perhaps  it  was  that  she  had  too  much  pride — or 
that  in  general  she  saw  life  with  too  much  self- 
complacency,  or  that  she  was  not  in  the  habit  of 
yielding  to  disappointment."  It  may  have  been 
that  Jenny  belonged  to  that  class  of  persons  who 
are  called,  self-sufficient.  She  plunged  through  a 
crisis  with  her  own  zest,  meeting  attack  with 
counter-attack,  keeping  her  head,  surveying  with 
the  instinctive  irreverence  and  self-protective 
wariness  of  the  London  urchin  the  possibilities 
and  swaying  fortunes  of  the  fight.  Emmy,  so 
much  slower,  so  much  less  self-reliant,  had  no 
refuge  but  in  scolding  that  grew  shriller  and  more 
shrill  until  it  ended  in  violent  weeping,  a  with- 
drawal from  the  field  entirely  abject.  She  was 
not  a  born  fighter.  She  was  harder  on  the  surface, 
but  weaker  in  powers  below  the  surface.  Her 
long  solitudes  had  made  her  build  up  grievances, 
and  devastating  thoughts,  had  given  her  a  thou- 
sand bitter  things  to  fling  into  the  conflict;  but 
,  they  had  not  strengthened  her  character,  and  she 
could  not  stand  the  strain  of  prolonged  argument. 
Sooner  or  later  she  would  abandon  everythingy 
exhausted,  and  beaten  into  impotence.  She  could 
bear  more,  endure  more,  than  Jenny;  she  could 
bear  much,  so  that  the  story  of  her  life  might 
be  read  as  one  long  scene  of  endurance  of  things 
which  Jenny  would  have  struggled  madly  to  over- 


SIX  O'CLOCK  25 

come  or  to  escape.  But  having  borne  for  so  long, 
she  could  fight  only  like  a  cat,  her  head  as  it  were 
turned  aside,  her  fur  upon  end,  stealthily  moving 
paw  by  paw,  always  keeping  her  front  to  the  foe, 
but  seeking  for  escape — until  the  pride  perilously 
supporting  her  temper  gave  way  and  she  dis- 
solved into  incoherence  and  quivering  sobs. 

It  might  have  been  said  roughly  that  Jenny 
more  closely  resembled  her  father,  whose  tempera- 
ment in  her  care-free,  happy-go-lucky  way  she 
understood  very  well  (better  than  Emmy  did), 
and  that  while  she  carried  into  her  affairs  a  neces- 
sarily more  delicate  refinement  than  his  she  had 
still  the  dare-devil  spirit  that  Pa's  friends  had 
so  much  admired.  She  had  more  humour  than 
Emmy — more  power  to  laugh,  to  be  detached,  to 
be  indifferent.  Emmy  had  no  such  power.  She 
could  laugh;  but  she  could  only  laugh  seriously, 
or  at  obviously  funny  things.  Otherwise,  she  felt 
everything  too  much.  As  Jenny  would  have  said, 
she  "couldn't  take  a  joke."  It  made  her  angry, 
or  puzzled,  to  be  laughed  at.  Jenny  laughed 
back,  and  tried  to  score  a  point  in  return,  not 
always  scrupulously.  Emmy  put  a  check  on  her 
tongue.  She  was  sometimes  virtuously  silent. 
Jenny  rarely  put  a  check  on  her  tongue.  She 
sometimes  let  it  say  perfectly  outrageous  things, 
and  was  surprised  at  the  consequences.  For  her 
it  wa«  enough  that  she  had  not  meant  to  hurt. 


26  NOCTURNE 

She  sometimes  hurt  very  much.  She  frequently 
hurt  Emmy  to  the  quick,  darting  in  one  of  her 
sure  careless  stabs  that  shattered  Emmy's  self- 
control.  So  while  they  loved  each  other,  Jenny 
also  despised  Emmy,  while  Emmy  in  return  hated 
and  was  jealous  of  Jenny,  even  to  the  point  of 
actively  wishing  in  moments  of  furtive  and  shame- 
faced savageness  to  harm  her.  That  was  the 
outward  difference  between  the  sisters  in  time  of 
stress.  Of  their  inner,  truer,  selves  it  would  be 
more  rash  to  speak,  for  in  times  of  peace  Jenny 
had  innumerable  insights  and  emotions  that  would 
be  forever  unknown  to  the  elder  girl.  The  sense 
of  rivalry,  however,  was  acute :  it  coloured  every 
moment  of  their  domestic  life,  unwinking  and  in- 
cessant. When  Emmy  came  from  the  scullery 
into  the  kitchen  bearing  her  precious  dish  of  stew, 
and  when  Jenny,  standing  up,  was  measured 
against  her,  this  rivalry  could  have  been  seen  by 
any  skilled  observer.  It  rayed  and  forked  about 
them  as  lightning  might  have  done  about  two 
adjacent  trees.  Emmy  put  down  her  dish. 

"Fetch  Pa,  will  you!"  she  said  briefly.  One 
could  see  who  gave  orders  in  the  kitchen. 

iv 

Jenny  found  her  father  in  his  bedroom,  sitting 
before  the  dressing-table  upon  which  a  tall  candle 
stood  in  an  equally  tall  candlestick.  He  was  look- 


SIX  O'CLOCK  .  27 

ing  intently  at  his  reflection  in  the  looking-glass, 
as  one  who  encounters  and  examines  a  stranger. 
In  the  glass  his  face  looked  red  and  ugly,  and  the 
tossed  grey  hair  and  heavy  beard  were  made  to 
appear  startlingly  unkempt.  His  mouth  was  open, 
and  his  eyes  shaded  by  lowered  lids.  In  a  rather 
trembling  voice  he  addressed  Jenny  upon  her  en- 
trance. 

"Is  supper  ready?"  ht  asked.  "I  heard  you 
come  in." 

"Yes,  Pa,"  said  Jenny.  "Aren't  you  going  to 
brush  your  hair?  Got  a  fancy  for  it  like  that, 
have  you?  My!  What  a  man!  With  his  shirt 
unbuttoned  and  his  tie  out.  Come  here!  Let's 
have  a  look  at  you!"  Although  her  words  were 
unkind,  her  tone  was  not,  and  as  she  rectified  his 
omissions  and  put  her  arm  round  him  Jenny  gave 
her  father  a  light  hug.  "All  right,  arc  you? 
Been  a  good  boy?" 

"Yes  ...  a  good  boy  .  .  . "  he  feebly  and 
waveringly  responded.  "What's  the  noos  to- 
night, Jenny?" 

Jenny  considered.  It  made  her  frown,  BO  con- 
centrated was  her  effort  to  remember. 

"Well,  somebody's  made  a  speech,"  she  yolun- 
teered.  "They  can  all  do  that,  can't  they!  And 
somebody's  paid  five  hundred  pounds  transfer 
for  Jack  Sutherdon  .  .  .  is  it  Barnsley  or  Burn- 
ley? .  .  .  And — oh,  a  fire  at  South wark.  .  .  . 


28  NOCTURNE 

Just  the  usual  sort  of  news,  Pa.  No  mur- 
ders. .  .  ." 

"  Ah,  they  don't  have  the  murders  they  used  to 
have,"  grumbled  the  old  man. 

"That's  the  police,  Pa."  Jenny  wanted  to  re- 
assure him. 

"I  don't  know  how  it  is,"  he  trembled, 
stiffening  his  body  and  rising  from  the 
chair. 

"Perhaps  they  hush  'em  up?"  That  was  a 
shock  to  him.  He  could  not  move  until  the  notion 
had  sunk  into  his  head.  "Or  perhaps  people  are 
more  careful.  .  .  .  Don't  get  leaving  them- 
selves about  like  they  used  to." 

Pa  Blanchard  had  no  suggestion.  Such  peril- 
ous ideas,  so  frequently  started  by  Jenny  for  his 
mystification,  joggled  together  in  his  brain  and 
made  there  the  subject  of  a  thousand  ruminations. 
They  tantalised  Pa's  slowly  revolving  thoughts, 
and  kept  these  moving  through  long  hours  of  si- 
lence. Such  notions  preserved  his  interest  in  the 
world,  and  his  senile  belief  in  Magic,  as  nothing 
else  could  have  done. 

Together,  their  pace  suited  to  his  step,  the  two 
moved  slowly  to  the  door.  It  took  a  long  time 
to  make  the  short  journey,  though  Jenny  sup- 
ported her  father  on  the  one  side  and  he  used  a 
stick  in  his  right  hand.  In  the  passage  he  waited 
while  she  blew  out  his  candle ;  and  then  they  went 


SIX  O'CLOCK  29 

forward  to  the  meal.  At  the  approach  Pa's  eyes 
opened  wider,  and  luminously  glowed. 

"Is  there  dumplings?"  he  quivered,  seeming 
to  tremble  with  excitement. 

"One  for  you,  Pa!"  cried  Emmy  from  the 
kitchen.  Pa  gave  a  small  chuckle  of  joy.  His 
progress  was  accelerated.  They  reached  the  table, 
and  Emmy  took  his  right  arm  for  the  descent  into 
a  substantial  chair.  Upon  Pa's  plate  glistened  a 
fair  dumpling,  a  glorious  mountain  of  paste  amid 
the  wreckage  of  meat  and  gravy.  "And  now, 
perhaps,"  Emmy  went  on,  smoothing  back  from 
her  forehead  a  little  streamer  of  hair,  "you'll 
close  the  door,  Jenny.  ..." 

It  was  closed  with  a  bang  that  made  Pa  jump 
and  Emmy  look  savagely  up. 

'  *  Sorry ! ' '  cried  Jenny.  ' '  How 's  that  dumpling, 
Pa?"  She  sat  recklessly  at  the  table. 

v 

To  look  at  the  three  of  them  sitting  there 
munching  away  was  a  sight  not  altogether  pleas- 
ing. Pa's  veins  stood  out  from  his  forehead,  and 
the  two  girls  devoted  themselves  to  the  food  as  if 
they  needed  it.  There  was  none  of  the  airy  talk 
that  goes  on  in  the  houses  of  the  rich  while  maids 
or  menservants  come  respectfully  to  right  or  left 
of  the  diners  with  decanters  or  dishes.  Here  tho 
food  was  the  thing,  and  there  was  no  speech. 
Sometimes  Pa's  eyes  rolled,  sometimes  Emmy 


30  NOCTURNE 

glanced  up  with  unconscious  malevolence  at 
Jenny,  sometimes  Jenny  almost  winked,  at  the 
lithograph  portrait  of  Edward  the  Seventh  (as 
Prince  of  Wales)  which  hung  over  the  mantelpiece 
above  the  one-and-tenpenny-ha 'penny  clock  that 
ticked  away  so  busily  there.  Something  had 
happened  long  ago  to  Edward  the  Seventh,  and 
he  had  a  stain  across  his  Field  Marshal's  uniform. 
Something  had  happened  also  to  the  clock,  which 
lay  upon  its  side,  as  if  kicking  in  a  death  agony. 
Something  had  happened  to  almost  everything  in 
the  kitchen.  Even  the  plates  on  the  dresser,  and 
the  cups  and  saucers  that  hung  or  stood  upon  the 
shelves,  bore  the  noble  scars  of  service.  Every 
time  Emmy  turned  her  glance  upon  a  damaged 
plate,  as  sharp  as  a  stalactite,  she  had  the 
thought:  "Jenny's  doing."  Every  time  she 
looked  at  the  convulsive  clock  Emmy  said  to  her- 
self:  "That  was  Miss  Jenny's  cleverness  when 
she  chucked  the  cosy  at  Alf."  And  when  Emmy 
said  in  this  reflective  silence  of  animosity  the 
name  "Alf"  she  drew  a  deep  breath  and  looked 
straight  up  at  Jenny  with  inscrutable  eyes  of  pain. 

vi 

The  stew  being  finished,  Emmy  collected  the 
plates,  and  retired  once  again  to  the  scullery. 
Now  did  Jenny  show  afresh  that  curiosity  whose 
first  flush  had  been  so  ill-satisfied  by  the  meat 


SIX  O'CLOCK  31 

course.  When,  however,  Emmy  reappeared  with 
that  most  domestic  of  sweets,  a  bread  pudding, 
Jenny's  face  fell  once  more;  for  of  all  dishes  she 
most  abominated  bread  pudding.  Under  her 
breath  she  adversely  commented. 

"Oh  lor!"  she  whispered.  "Stew  and  b.  p. 
What  a  life!" 

Emmy,  not  hearing,  but  second  sighted  on  such 
matters,  shot  a  malevolent  glance  from  her  place. 
In  an  awful  voice,  intended  to  be  a  trifle  arch,  she 
addressed  her  father. 

"Bready  butter  pudding,  Pa?"  she  inquired. 
The  old  man  whinnied  with  delight,  and  Emmy 
was  appeased.  She  had  one  satisfied  client,  at 
any  rate.  She  cut  into  the  pudding  with  a  knife, 
producing  wedges  with  a  dexterous  hand. 

"Hey  ho!"  observed  Jenny  to  Herself,  taste- 
lessly beginning  the  work  of  laborious  demolition. 

"Jenny  thinks  it's  common.  She  ought  to  have 
the  job  of  getting  the  meals!"  cried  Emmy,  bit- 
terly, obliquely  attacking  her  sister  by  talking  at 
her.  "Something  to'  talk  about  then!"  she 
sneered  with  chagrin,  up  in  arms  at  a  criticism. 

"Well,  the  truth  is,  "drawled  Jenny.  ...  "If 
you  want  it  ...  I  don't  like  bread  pudding." 
Somehow  she  had  never  said  that  before,  in  all 
the  years;  but  it  seemed  to  her  that  bread  pud- 
ding was  like  ashes  in  the  mouth.  It  was  like 
duty,  or  funerals,  or  ...  stew. 


32  NOCTURNE 

"The  stuff's  got  to  be  finished  up!"  flared 
Emmy  defiantly,  with  a  sense  of  being  adjudged 
inferior  because  she  had  dutifully  habituated  her- 
self to  the  appreciation  of  bread  pudding.  "You 
might  think  of  that!  What  else  am  I  to  do?" 

"That's  just  it,  old  girl.  Just  why  I  don't 
like  it.  I  just  hate  to  feel  I'm  finishing  it  up. 
Same  with  stew.  I  know  it's  been  something  else 
first.  It's  not  fresh.  Same  old  thing,  week  in, 
week  out.  Finishing  up  the  scraps!'* 

"Proud  stomach!"  A  quick  flush  came  into 
Emmy's  cheeks;  and  tears  started  to  her  eyes. 

"Perhaps  it  is.  Oh,  but  Em!  Don't  you  feel 
like  that  yourself.  .  .  .  Sometimes  ?  0-o-h !  .  .  .  " 
She  drawled  the  word  wearily.  "Oh  for  a  bit 
more  money!  Then  we  could  give  stew  to  the 
cat's-meat  man  and  bread  to  old  Thompson's 
chickens.  And  then  we  could  have  nice  things 
to  eat.  Nice  birds  and  pastry  .  .  .  and  trifle, 
and  ices,  and  wine.  .  .  .  Not  all  this  muck!" 

"Muck!"  cried  Emmy,  her  lips  seeming  to 
thicken.  "When  I'm  so  hot.  .  .  .  And  sick  of 
it  all!  You  go  out;  you  do  just  exactly  what 
you  like.  .  .  .  And  then  you  come  home  and 
.  .  ."  She  began  to  gulp.  "What  about  me?" 

"Well,  it's  just  as  bad  for  both  of  us!"  Jenny 
did  not  think  so  really;  but  she  said  it.  She 
thought  Emmy  had  the  bread  and  butter  pudding 
nature,  and  that  she  did  not  greatly  care  what  she 


SIX  O'CLOCK  33 

ate  as  long  as  it  was  not  too  fattening.  Jenny 
thought  of  Emmy  as  born  for  housework  and 
cooking — of  stew  and  bread  puddings.  For  her- 
self she  had  dreamed  a  nobler  destiny,  a  destiny 
of  romance,  of  delicious  unknown  things,  romantic 
and  indescribably  exciting.  She  was  to  have  the 
adventures,  because  she  needed  them.  Emmy 
didn't  need  them.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Emmy 
to  say  "What  about  me?"  It  was  no  business 
of  hers  what  happened  to  Emmy.  They  were 
different.  Still,  she  repeated  more  confidently 
because  there  had  been  no  immediate  re- 
tort: 

"Well,  it's  just  as  bad  for  both  of  us!  Just 
as  bad!" 

"  'Tisn't !  You're  out  all  day — doing  what  you 
like!" 

"Oh!"  Jenny's  eyes  opened  with  theatrical 
wideness  at  such  a  perversion  of  the  facts.  "Do- 
ing what  I  like!  The  millinery!" 

"You  are !  You  don't  have  to  do  all  the  scrap- 
ing to  make  things  go  round,  like  I  have  to.  No, 
you  xion't!  Here  have  I  ...  been  in  this  .  .  . 
place,  slaving!  Hour  after  hour!  I  wish  you'd 
try  and  manage  better.  I  bet  you'd  be  thankful 
to  finish  up  the  scraps  some  way — any  old  way! 
I'd  like  to  see  you  do  what  I  do!" 

Momentarily  Jenny's  picture  of  Emmy's  nature 
(drawn  accommodatingly  by  herself  in  order  that 


34  NOCTURNE 

her  own  might  be  differentiated  and  exalted  by 
any  comparison)  was  shattered.  Emmy's  ve- 
hemence had  thus  the  temporary  effect  of  creat- 
ing a  fresh  reality  out  of  a  common  idealisation  of 
circumstance.  The  legend  would  re-form  later, 
perhaps,  and  would  continue  so  to  re-form  as 
persuasion  flowed  back  upon  Jenny's  egotism, 
until  it  crystallised  hard  and  became  unchallenge- 
able; but  at  any  rate  for  this  instant  Jenny  had 
had  a  glimmer  of  insight  into  that  tamer  discon- 
tent and  rebelliousness  that  encroached  like  a 
canker  upon  Emmy's  originally  sweet  nature. 
The  shock  of  impact  with  unpleasant  conviction 
made  Jenny  hasten  to  dissemble  her  real  belief 
in  Emmy's  born  inferiority.  Her  note  was 
changed  from  one  of  complaint  into  one  of  per- 
suasive entreaty. 

"It's  not  that.  It's  not  that.  Not  at  all.  But 
wouldn't  you  like  a  change  from  stew  and  bread 
pudding  yourself?  Sometimes,  I  mean.  You 
seem  to  like  it  all  right."  At  that  ill-considered 
suggestion,  made  with  unintentional  savageness, 
Jenny  so  worked  upon  herself  that  her  own  colour 
rose  high.  Her  temper  became  suddenly  unman- 
ageable. "You  talk  about  me  being  out!"  she 
breathlessly  exclaimed.  "When  do  I  go  out? 
When!  Tell  me!" 

"O-o-h!  I  like  that!  What  about  going  to 
the  pictures  with  Alf  Eylett?"  Emmy's  hands 


SIX  O'CLOCK  35 

were  jerking  upon  the  table  in  her  anger.  "You're 
always  out  with  him!" 

"Me?    Well  I  never!    I'm  not.    When " 

They  were  interrupted  unexpectedly  by  a  feeble 
and  jubilant  voice. 

"More  bready  butter  pudding!"  said  Pa 
Blanchard,  tipping  his  plate  to  show  that  he  had 
finished. 

"Yes,  Pa!"  For  the  moment  Emmy  was  dis- 
tracted from  her  feud.  In  a  mechanical  way,  as 
mothers  sometimes,  deep  in  conversation,  attend 
to  their  children's  needs,  she  put  another  wedge 
of  pudding  upon  the  plate.  "Well,  I  say  you 
are,"  she  resumed  in  the  same  strained  voice. 
"And  tell  me  when  /  go  out!  I  go  out  shopping. 
That's  all.  But  for  that,  I'm  in  the  house  day 
and  night.  You  don't  care  tuppence  about  Alf 
—you  wouldn't,  not  if  he  was  walking  the  soles 
off  his  boots  to  come  to  you.  You  never  think 
about  him.  He's  like  dirt,  to  you.  Yet  you  go 
out  with  him  time  after  time.  ..."  Her  lips  as 
she  broke  off  were  pursed  into  a  trembling  un- 
happy pout,  sure  forerunner  of  tears.  Her  voice 
was  weak  with  feeling.  The  memory  of  lonely 
evenings  surged  into  her  mind,  evenings  when 
Jenny  was  out  with  Alf,  while  she,  the  drudge, 
stayed  at  home  with  Pa,  until  she  was  desperate 
with  the  sense  of  unutterable  wrong.  "Time 
after  time,  you  go." 


36  NOCTURNE 

1  'Sorry,  I'm  sure!"  flung  back  Jenny,  fairly 
in  the  fray,  too  quick  not  to  read  the  plain  message 
of  Emmy's  tone  and  expression,  too  cruel  to  re- 
linquish the  sudden  advantage.  "I  never  guessed 
you  wanted  him.  I  wouldn't  have  done  it  for 
worlds.  You  never  said,  you  know  P'  Satirically, 
she  concluded,  with  a  studiously  careful  accent, 
which  she  used  when  she  wanted  to  indicate  scorn 
or  innuendo,  "I'm  sorry.  I  ought  to  have  asked 
if  I  might!"  Then,  with  a  dash  into  grimmer 
satire:  "Why  doesn't  he  ask  you  to  go  with  him! 
Funny  his  asking  me,  isn't  it?" 

Emmy  grew  violently  crimson.  Her  voice  had 
a  roughness  in  it.  She  was  mortally  wounded. 

" Anybody 'd  know  you  were  a  lady!"  she  said 
warmly. 

' ' They're  welcome ! ' '  retorted  Jenny.  Her  eyes 
flashed,  glittering  in  the  paltry  gaslight.  "He's 
never  .  .  .  Emmy,  I  didn't  know  you  were  such 
a  silly  little  fool.  Fancy  going  on  like  that  .  .  . 
about  a  man  like  him.  At  your  age ! ' ' 

Vehement  glances  flashed  between  them.  All 
Emmy's  jealousy  was  in  her  face,  clear  as  day. 
Jenny  drew  a  sharp  breath.  Then,  obstinately, 
she  closed  her  lips,  looking  for  a  moment  like  the 
girl  in  the  sliding  window,  inscrutable.  Emmy, 
also  recovering  herself,  spoke  again,  trying  to 
iteady  her  voice. 

"It's  not  what  you  think.    But  I  can't  bear  to 


SIX  O'CLOCK  37 

see  you  .  .  .  playing  about  with  him.  It's  not 
fair.  He  thinks  you  mean  it.  You  don't!" 

"Course  I  don't.  I  don't  mean  anything.  A 
fellow  like  that ! ' '  Jenny  laughed  a  little,  wound- 
ingly. 

"What's  the  matter  with  him?"  Savagely, 
Emmy  betrayed  herself  again.  She  was  trembling 
from  head  to  foot,  her  mind  blundering  hither 
and  thither  for  help  against  a  quicker-witted  foe. 
"It's  only  you  he's  not  good  enough  for,"  she  said 
passionately.  "What's  the  matter  with  him!" 

Jenny  considered,  her  pale  face  now  deadly 
white,  all  the  heat  gone  from  her  cheeks,  though 
the  hard  glitter  remained  in  her  eyes,  cruelly  in- 
dicating the  hunger  within  her  bosom. 

"Oh,  he's  all  right  in  his  way,"  she  drawlingly 
admitted.  "He's  clean.  That's  in  his  favour. 
But  he's  quiet  .  .  .he's  got  no  devil  in  him. 
Sort  of  man  who  tells  you  what  he  likes  for  break- 
fast. I  only  go  with  him  .  .  .  well,  you  know 
why,  as  well  as  I  do.  He's  all  right  enough,  as 
far  as  he  goes.  But  he's  never  on  for  a  bit  of  fun. 
That's  it:  he's  got  no  devil  in  him.  I  don't  like 
that  kind.  Prefer  the  other  sort." 

During  this  speech  Emmy  had  kept  back  bitter 
interruptions  by  an  unparalleled  effort.  It  had 
seemed  as  though  her  fury  had  flickered,  blazing 
and  dying  away  as  thought  and  feeling  struggled 
together  for  mastery.  At  the  end  of  it,  however, 


38  NOCTURNE 

and  at  Jenny's  declared  preference  for  men  of 
devil,  Emmy's  face  hardened. 

"You  be  careful,  my  girl,"  she  prophesied  with 
a  warning  glance  of  anger.  "If  that's  the  kind 
you're  after.  Take  care  you're  not  left!" 

"Oh,  I  can  take  care,"  Jenny  said,  with  cold 
nonchalance.  "Trust  me!" 

vii 

Later,  when  they  were  both  in  the  chilly  scul- 
lery, washing  up  the  supper  dishes,  they  were 
again  constrained.  Somehow  when  they  were 
alone  together  they  could  not  quarrel:  it  needed 
the  presence  of  Pa  Blanchard  to  stimulate  them 
to  retort.  In  his  rambling  silences  they  found 
the  spur  for  their  unkind  eloquence,  and  too  often 
Pa  was  used  as  a  stalking-horse  for  their  angers. 
He  could  hardly  hear,  and  could  not  follow  the 
talk;  but  by  directing  a  remark  to  him,  so  that 
it  cannoned  off  at  the  other,  each  obtained  sat- 
isfaction for  the  rivalry  that  endured  from  day 
to  day  between  them.  Their  hungry  hearts,  all 
the  latent  bitternesses  in  their  natures,  yearning 
for  expression,  found  it  in  his  presence.  But 
alone,  whatever  their  angers,  they  were  generally 
silent.  It  may  have  been  that  their  love  was 
strong,  or  that  their  courage  failed,  or  that  the 
energy  required  for  conflict  was  not  aroused. 
That  they  deeply  loved  one  another  was  sure; 


SIX  O'CLOCK  39 

there  was  rivalry,  jealousy,  irritation  between 
them,  but  it  did  not  affect  their  love.  The  jeal- 
ousy was  a  part  of  their  general  discontent — a 
jealousy  that  would  grow  more  intense  as  each 
remained  frustrate  and  unhappy.  Neither  under- 
stood the  forces  at  work  within  herself ;  each  saw 
these  perversely  illustrated  in  the  other's  faults. 
In  each  case  the  cause  of  unhappiness  was  un- 
satisfied love,  unsatisfied  craving  for  love.  It  was 
more  acute  in  Emmy's  case,  because  she  was  older 
and  because  the  love  she  needed  was  under  her 
eyes  being  wasted  upon  Jenny — if  it  were  love, 
and  not  that  mixture  of  admiration  and  desire 
with  self-esteem  that  goes  to  make  the  common 
formula  to  which  the  name  of  love  is  generally 
attached.  Jenny  could  not  be  jealous  of  Emmy 
as  Emmy  was  jealous  of  Jenny.  She  had  no 
cause;  Emmy  was  not  her  rival.  Jenny's  rival 
was  life  itself,  as  will  be  shown  hereafter:  she 
had  her  own  pain. 

It  was  thus  only  natural  that  the  two  girls, 
having  pushed  Pa's  chair  to  the  side  of  the  kitchen 
fire,  and  having  loaded  and  set  light  to  Pa 's  pipe, 
should  work  together  in  silence  for  a  few  min- 
utes, clearing  the  table  and  washing  the  supper 
dishes.  They  were  distant,  both  aggrieved; 
Emmy  with  labouring  breath  and  a  sense  of  bitter 
animosity,  Jenny  with  the  curled  lip  of  one  tri- 
umphant who  does  not  need  her  triumph  and 


40  NOCTURNE 

would  abandon  it  at  the  first  move  of  forgiveness. 
They  could  not  speak.  The  work  was  done,  and 
Emmy  was  rinsing  the  washing  basin,  before 
Jenny  could  bring  herself  to  say  awkwardly  what 
she  had  in  her  mind. 

"Em,"  she  began.  "I  didn't  know  you  .  .  . 
you  know."  A  silence.  Emmy  continued  to 
swirl  the  water  round  with  the  small  washing- 
mop,  her  face  averted.  Jenny's  lip  stiffened.  She 
made  another  attempt,  to  be  the  last,  restraining 
her  irritation  with  a  great  effort.  "If  you  like 
I  won't  ...  I  won't  go  out  with  him  any  more." 

"Oh,  you  needn't  worry,"  Emmy  doggedly 
said,  with  her  teeth  almost  clenched.  "I'm  not 
worrying  about  it."  She  tried  then  to  keep  si- 
lent ;  but  the  words  were  forced  from  her  wounded 
heart.  With  uncontrollable  sarcasm  she  said: 
"It's  very  good  of  you,  I'm  sure!" 

"Em!"  It  was  coaxing.  Jenny  went  nearer. 
Still  there  was  no  reply.  "Em  .  .  .  don't  be  a 
silly  cat.  If  he'd  only  ask  you  to  go  once  or  twice. 
He'd  always  want  to.  You  needn't  worry  about 
me  being  .  .  .  See,  I  like  somebody  else — another 
fellow.  He's  on  a  ship.  Nowhere  near  here.  I 
only  go  with  Alf  because  .  .  .  well,  after  all,  he's 
a  man;  and  they're  scarce.  Suppose  I  leave  off 
going  with  him.  ..." 

Both  knew  she  had  nothing  but  kind  intention, 
as  in  fact  the  betrayal  of  her  own  secret  proved ; 


SIX  O'CLOCK  41 

but  as  Jenny  could  not  keep  out  of  her  voice  the 
slightest  tinge  of  complacent  pity,  so  Emmy  could 
not  accept  anything  so  intolerable  as  pity. 

"Thanks,"  she  said  in  perfunctory  refusal; 
"but  you  can  do  what  you  like.  Just  what  you 
like."  She  was  implacable.  She  was  drying  the 
basin,  her  face  hidden.  "I'm  not  going  to  take 
your  leavings."  At  that  her  voice  quivered  and 
had  again  that  thread  of  roughness  in  it  which  had 
been  there  earlier.  "Not  likely!" 

"Well,  I  can't  help  it,  can  I!"  cried  Jenny,  out 
of  patience.  "If  he  likes  me  best.  If  he  won't 
come  to  you.  I  mean,  if  I  say  I  won't  go  out 
with  him — will  that  put  him  on  to  you  or  send 
him  off  altogether!  Em,  do  be  sensible.  Really, 
I  never  knew.  Never  dreamt  of  it.  I've  never 
wanted  him.  It's  not  as  though  he'd  whistled  and 
I'd  gone  trotting  after  him.  Em!  You  get  so 
ratty  about " 

"Superior!"  cried  Emmy,  gaspingly.  "Look 
down  on  me ! ' '  She  was  for  an  instant  hysterical, 
speaking  loudly  and  weepingly.  Then  she  was 
close  against  Jenny ;  and  they  were  holding  each 
other  tightly,  while  Emmy's  dreadful  quiet  sobs 
shook  both  of  them  to  the  heart.  And  Jenny, 
above  her  sister's  shoulder,  could  see  through  the 
window  the  darkness  that  lay  without;  and  her 
eyes  grew  tender  at  an  unbidden  thought,  which 
made  her  try  to  force  herself  to  see  through  the 


42  NOCTURNE 

darkness,  as  though  she  were  sending  a  speechless 
message  to  the  unknown.  Then,  feeling  Emmy 
still  sobbing  in  her  arms,  she  looked  down,  laying 
her  face  against  her  sister's  face.  A  little  con- 
temptuous smile  appeared  in  her  eyes,  and  her 
brow  furrowed.  Well,  Emmy  could  cry.  She 
couldn't.  She  didn't  want  to  cry.  She  wanted 
to  go  out  in  the  darkness  that  so  pleasantly  en- 
wrapped the  earth,  back  to  the  stir  and  glitter  of 
life  somewhere  beyond.  Abruptly  Jenny  sighed. 
Her  vision  had  been  far  different  from  this  scene. 
It  had  carried  her  over  land  and  sea  right  into  an 
unexplored  realm  where  there  was  wild  laughter 
and  noise,  where  hearts  broke  tragically  and 
women  in  the  hour  of  ruin  turned  triumphant  eyes 
to  the  glory  of  life,  and  where  blinding  stream- 
ing lights  and  scintillating  colours  made  every- 
thing seem  different,  made  it  seem  romantic, 
rapturous,  indescribable.  From  that  vision  back 
to  the  cupboard-like  house  in  Kennington  Park, 
and  stodgy  Alf  Eylett,  and  supper  of  stew  and 
bread  and  butter  pudding,  and  Pa,  and  this  little 
sobbing  figure  in  her  arms,  was  an  incongruous 
flight.  It  made  Jenny's  mouth  twist  in  a  smile 
so  painful  that  it  was  almost  a  grimace. 

"Oh  lor!"  she  said  again,  under  her  breath, 
as  she  had  said  it  earlier.    "What  a  life!" 


CHAPTER  II:  THE  TREAT 


KADUALLY  Emmy's  tearless  sobs  dimin- 
ished ;  she  began  to  murmur  broken,  mean- 
ingless ejaculations  of  self -contempt ;  and  to 
strain  away  from  Jenny.  At  last  she  pushed 
Jenny  from  her,  feverishly  freeing  herself,  so 
that  they  stood  apart,  while  Emmy  blew  her  nose 
and  wiped  her  eyes.  All  this  time  they  did  not 
speak  to  each  other,  and  when  Emmy  turned 
blindly  away  Jenny  mechanically  took  hold  of  the 
kettle,  filled  it,  and  set  it  to  boil  upon  the  gas. 
Emmy  watched  her  curiously,  feeling  that  her 
nose  was  cold  and  her  eyes  were  burning.  Little 
dry  tremors  seemed  to  shake  her  throat;  dreari- 
ness had  settled  upon  her,  pressing  her  down; 
making  her  feel  ashamed  of  such  a  display  of  the 
long  secret  so  carefully  hoarded  away  from  pry- 
ing glances. 

"What's  that  for?"  she  miserably  asked,  indi- 
cating the  kettle. 

"Going  to  steam  my  hat,"  Jenny  said.  "The 
brim's  all  floppy."  There  was  now  only  a  prac- 
tical note  in  her  voice.  She,  too,  was  ashamed. 
"You'd  better  go  up  and  lie  down  for  a  bit.  I'll 

43 


44  NOCTURNE 

stay  with  Pa,  in  case  he  falls  into  the  fire.  Just 
the  sort  of  thing  he  would  do  on  a  night  like  this. 
Just  because  you're  upset." 

"I  shan't  go  up.  It's  too  cold.  I'll  sit  by  the 
fire  a  bit. ' ' 

They  both  went  into  the  kitchen,  where  the  old 
man  was  whistling  under  his  breath. 

"Was  there  any  noos  on  the  play-cards?"  he 
inquired  after  a  moment,  becoming  aware  of 
their  presence.  "Emmy — Jenny." 

"No,  Pa.  I  told  you.  Have  to  wait  till  Sun- 
day. Funny  thing  there's  so  much  more  news  in 
the  Sunday  papers.  I  suppose  people  are  all  ex- 
tra wicked  on  Saturdays.  They  get  paid  Friday 
night,  I  shouldn't  wonder;  and  it  goes  to  their 
heads. ' ' 

"Silly!"  Emmy  said  under  her  breath.  "It's 
the  week's  news." 

"That's  all  right,  old  girl,"  admonished  Jenny. 
"I  was  only  giving  him  something  to  think  about. 
Poor  old  soul.  Now,  about  this  hat:  the  girls 
all  go  on  at  me.  .  .  .  Say  I  dress  like  a  broker 's- 
man.  I'm  going  to  smarten  myself  up.  You 
never  know  what  might  happen.  Why,  I  might 
get  off  with  a  Duke!" 

Emmy  was  overtaken  by  an  impulse  of  grati- 
tude. 

"You  can  have  mine,  if  you  like,"  she  said. 
"The  one  you  gave  me  ...  on  my  birthday." 


THE  TREAT  45 

Jenny  solemnly  shook  her  head.  She  did  not 
thank  her  sister.  Thanks  were  never  given  in 
that  household,  because  they  were  a  part  of 
"peliteness,"  and  were  supposed  to  have  no  place 
in  the  domestic  arena. 

"Not  if  I  know  it!"  she  humorously  retorted. 
"I  made  it  for  you,  and  it  suits  you.  Not  my 
style  at  all.  I'll  just  get  out  my  box  of  bits. 
You'll  see  something  that'll  surprise  you,  nryj 
girl." 

The  box  proved  to  contain  a  large  number  of 
"bits"  of  all  sizes  and  kinds — fragments  of  silk 
(plain  and  ribbed),  of  plush,  of  ribbon  both  wide 
and  narrow;  small  sprays  of  marguerites,  a  rose 
or  two,  some  poppies,  and  a  bunch  of  violets;  a 
few  made  bows  in  velvet  and  silk;  some  elastic, 
some  satin,  some  feathers,  a  wing  here  and  there 
.  .  .  the  miscellaneous  assortment  of  odds-and- 
ends  always  appropriated  (or,  in  the  modern  mil- 
itary slang,  "won")  by  assistants  in  the  mil- 
linery. Some  had  been  used,  some  were  start- 
lingly  new.  Jenny  was  more  modest  in  such  ac- 
quirements than  were  most  of  her  associates ;  but 
she  was  affected,  as  all  such  must  be,  by  the  pre- 
vailing wind.  Strangely  enough,  it  was  not  her 
habit  to  wear  very  smart  hats,  for  business  or  at 
any  other  time.  She  would  have  told  you,  in  the 
event  of  any  such  remark,  that  when  you  had 
been  fiddling  about  with  hats  all  day  you  had  other 


46  NOCTURNE 

things  to  do  in  the  evenings.  Yet  she  had  good 
taste  and  very  nimble  fingers  when  occasion  arose. 
In  bringing  her  box  from  the  bedroom  she 
brought  also  from  the  stand  in  the  passage  her 
drooping  hat,  against  which  she  proceeded  to  lay 
various  materials,  trying  them  with  her  sure  eye, 
seeking  to  compose  a  picture,  with  that  instruc- 
tive sense  of  cynosure  which  marks  the  crafty  ex- 
pert. Fascinated,  with  her  lips  parted  in  an  ex- 
pression of  that  stupidity  which  is  so  often  the 
sequel  to  a  fit  of  crying,  Emmy  watched  Jenny's 
proceedings,  her  eyes  travelling  from  the  hat  to 
the  ever-growing  heap  of  discarded  ornaments. 
She  was  dully  impressed  with  the  swift  judgment 
of  her  sister  in  consulting  the  secrets  of  her  inner 
taste.  It  was  a  judgment  unlike  anything  in  her 
own  nature  of  which  she  was  aware,  excepting  the 
measurement  of  ingredients  for  a  pudding. 

So  they  sat,  all  engrossed,  while  the  kettle  began 
to  sing  and  the  desired  steam  to  pour  from  the 
spout,  clouding  the  scullery.  The  only  sound 
that  arose  was  the  gurgling  of  Pa  Blanchard's 
pipe  (for  he  was  what  is  called  in  Kennington 
Park  a  wet  smoker).  He  sat  remembering  some- 
thing or  pondering  the  insufficiency  of  news. 
Nobody  ever  knew  what  he  thought  about  in  his 
silences.  It  was  a  mystery  over  which  the  girls 
did  not  puzzle,  because  they  were  themselves  in 
the  habit  of  sitting  for  long  periods  without 


THE  TREAT  47 

speech.  Pa's  breedings  were  as  customary  to 
them  as  the  absorbed  contemplativeness  of  a 
baby.  "Give  him  his  pipe,"  as  Jenny  said; 
"and  he'll  be  quiet  for  hours — till  it  goes  out. 
Then  there's  a  fuss!  My  word,  what  a  racket! 
Talk  about  a  fire  alarm!"  And  on  such  occa- 
sions she  would  mimic  him  ridiculingly,  to 
diminish  his  complaints,  while  Emmy  roughly 
relighted  the  hubble-bubble  and  patted  her  father 
once  more  into  a  contented  silence.  Pa  was  to 
them,  although  they  did  not  know  it,  their  bond 
of  union.  Without  him,  they  would  have  fallen 
apart,  like  the  outer  pieces  of  a  wooden  boot-tree. 
For  his  sake,  with  all  the  apparent  lack  of  sym- 
pathy shown  in  their  behaviour  to  him,  they  en- 
dured a  life  which  neither  desired  nor  would  have 
tolerated  upon  her  own  account.  So  it  was  that 
Pa's  presence  acted  as  a  check  and  served  them 
as  company  of  a  meagre  kind,  although  he  was 
less  interesting  or  expansive  than  a  little  dog 
might  have  been. 

When  Jenny  went  out  to  the  scullery  carrying 
her  hat,  after  sweeping  the  scraps  she  had  de- 
clined back  into  the  old  draper's  cardboard  box 
which  amply  contained  such  treasures  and  pre- 
served them  from  dust,  Emmy,  now  quite  quiet 
again,  continued  to  sit  by  the  fire,  staring  at  the 
small  glowing  strip  that  showed  under  the  door 
of  the  kitchen  grate.  Every  now  and  then  she 


48  NOCTURNE 

would  sigh,  wearily  closing  her  eyes;  and  her 
breast  would  rise  as  if  with  a  sob.  And  she  would 
sometimes  look  slowly  up  at  the  clock,  with  her 
head  upon  one  side  in  order  to  see  the  hands  in 
their  proper  aspect,  as  if  she  were  calculating. 

ii 

From  the  scullery  came  the  sound  of  Jenny's 
thistle  as  she  cheerily  held  the  hat  over  the 
steam.  Pa  heard  it  as  something  far  away,  like 
a  distant  Salvationists'  band,  and  pricked  up  his 
ears;  Emmy  heard  it,  and  her  brow  was  con- 
tracted. Her  expression  darkened.  Jenny  began 
to  hum : 

"  'Oh  Liza,  sweet  Liza, 

If  you  die  an  old  maid  you'll  have  only  yourself  to 
blame...'" 

It  was  like  a  sudden  noise  in  a  forest  at  night, 
so  poignant  was  the  contrast  of  the  radiating 
silences  that  succeeded.  Jenny's  voice  stopped 
sharply.  Perhaps  it  had  occurred  to  her  that  her 
song  would  be  overheard.  Perhaps  she  had  her- 
self become  affected  by  the  meaning  of  the  words 
she  was  so  carelessly  singing.  There  was  once 
more  an  air  of  oblivion  over  all  things.  The  old 
man  sank  back  in  his  chair,  puffing  slowly,  blue 
smoke  from  the  bowl  of  the  pipe,  grey  smoke  from 
between  his  lips.  Emmy  looked  again  at  the 
clock.  She  had  the  listening  air  of  one  who  awaits 


THE  TREAT  49 

a  bewildering  event.  Once  she  shivered,  and 
bent  to  the  fire,  raking  among  the  red  tumbling 
small  coal  with  the  bent  kitchen  poker.  Jenny 
began  to  whistle  again,  and  Emmy  impatiently 
wriggled  her  shoulders,  jarred  by  the  noise. 
Suddenly  she  could  bear  no  longer  the  whistle  that 
pierced  her  thoughts  and  distracted  her  attention, 
but  went  out  to  the  scullery. 

"How  are  you  getting  on?"  she  asked  with  an 
effort. 

"Fine.  This  gas  leaks.  Can't  you  whiff  it! 
Don't  know  which  one  it  is.  Pa  all  right!" 

"Yes,  he's  all  right.    Nearly  finished?" 

"Getting  on.  Tram  nearly  ran  over  a  kid  to- 
night. She  was  wheeling  a  pram  full  of  washing 
on  the  line.  There  wasn't  half  a  row  about  it — 
shouting  and  swearing.  Anybody  would  have 
thought  the  kid  had  laid  down  on  the  line.  I 
expect  she  was  frightened  out  of  her  wits — all 
those  men  shouting  at  her.  There,  now  I'll  lay 
it  on  the  plate  rack  over  the  gas  for  a  bit.  .  .  . 
Look  smart,  shan't  I!  With  a  red  rose  in  it  and 
a  red  ribbon.  ..." 

"Not  going  to  have  those  streamers,  or  any 
lace,  are  you?" 

"Not  likely.  You  see  the  kids  round  here  wear- 
ing them;  but  the  kids  round  here  are  always  a 
season  late.  Same  with  their  costumes.  They 
don't  know  any  better.  I  do!" 


50  NOCTURNE 

Jenny  was  cheerfully  contemptuous.  She  knew 
what  was  being  worn  along  Regent  Street  and 
in  Bond  Street,  because  she  saw  it  with  her  own 
eyes.  Then  she  came  home  and  saw  the  girls  of 
her  own  district  swanking  about  like  last  year's 
patterns,  as  she  said.  She  couldn't  help  laughing 
at  them.  It  made  her  think  of  the  tales  of  savages 
wearing  top  hats  with  strings  of  beads  and  think- 
ing they  were  all  in  the  latest  European  fashion. 
That  is  the  constant  amusement  of  the  expert 
as  she  regards  the  amateur.  She  has  all  the  sat- 
isfaction of  knowing  better,  without  the  turmoil 
of  competition,  a  fact  which  distinguishes  the 
superior  spirit  from  the  struggling  helot.  Jenny 
took  full  advantage  of  her  situation  and  her 
knowledge. 

"Yes,  you  know  a  lot,"  Emmy  said  dryly. 

"Ah,  you've  noticed  it?"  Jenny  was  not  to  be 
gibed  at  without  retort.  "I'm  glad." 

"So  you  think,"  Emmy  added,  as  though  she 
had  not  heard  the  reply. 

There  came  at  this  moment  a  knock  at  the  front 
door.  Emmy  swayed,  grew  pale,  and  then  slowly 
reddened  until  the  colour  spread  to  the  very 
edges  of  her  bodice.  The  two  girls  looked  at  one 
another,  a  deliberate  interchange  of  glances  that 
was  at  the  same  time,  upon  both  sides,  an  intense 
scrutiny.  Emmy  was  breathing  heavily ;  Jenny's 
nostrils  were  pinched. 


THE  TREAT  51 

X 

"Well,"  at  last  said  Jenny,  drawlingly. 
"Didn't  you  hear  the  knock?  Aren't  you  going 
to  answer  it?"  She  reached  as  she  spoke  to  the 
hat  lying  upon  the  plate  rack  above  the  gas  stove, 
looking  fixedly  away  from  her  sister.  Her  air 
of  gravity  was  unchanged.  Emmy,  hesitating, 
made  as  if  to  speak,  to  implore  something;  but, 
being  repelled,  she  turned,  and  went  thoughtfully 
across  the  kitchen  to  the  front  door.  Jenny 
carried  her  hat  into  the  kitchen  and  sat  down  at 
the  table  as  before.  The  half -contemptuous  smile 
had  reappeared  in  her  eyes;  but  her  mouth  was 
quite  serious. 

iii 

Pa  Blanchard  had  worked  as  a  boy  and  man  in 
a  large  iron  foundry.  He  had  been  a  very 
capable  workman,  and  had  received  as  the  years 
went  on  the  maximum  amount  (with  overtime) 
to  be  earned  by  men  doing  his  class  of  work.  He 
had  not  been  abstemious,  and  so  he  had  spent 
a  good  deal  of  his  earnings  in  what  is  in  Ken- 
nington  Park  called  "pleasure";  but  he  had  also 
possessed  that  common  kind  of  sense  which  leads 
men  to  pay  money  into  sick  and  benefit  clubs. 
Accordingly,  his  wife's  illness  and  burial  had,  as 
he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  saying,  "cost  him 
nothing."  They  were  paid  by  his  societies. 
Similarly,  when  he  had  himself  been  attacked  by 


52  NOCTURNE 

the  paralytic  seizure  which  had  wrecked  his  life, 
the  societies  had  paid;  and  now,  in  addition  to 
the  pension  allowed  by  his  old  employers,  he  re- 
ceived a  weekly  dole  from  the  societies  which 
brougkt  his  income  up  to  fifty  shillings  a  week. 
The  pension,  of  course,  would  cease  upon  his 
death ;  but  so  long  as  life  was  kept  burning  within 
him  nothing  could  affect  the  amounts  paid  weekly 
into  the  Blanchard  exchequer.  Pa  was  fifty- 
seven,  and  normally  would  have  had  a  respect- 
able number  of  years  before  him ;  his  wants  were 
now  few,  and  his  days  were  carefully  watched 
over  fey  his  daughters.  He  would  continue  to 
draw  his  pensions  for  several  years  yet,  unless 
something  unexpected  happened  to  him.  Mean- 
while, therefore,  his  pipe  was  regularly  filled  and 
his  old  pewter  tankard  appeared  at  regular  inter- 
vals, in  order  that  Pa  should  feel  as  little  as  pos- 
sible the  change  in  his  condition. 

Mrs.  Blanchard  had  been  dead  ten  years.  She 
had  been  very  much  as  Emmy  now  was,  but  a 
great  deal  more  cheerful.  She  had  been  plump 
and  fresb-coloured,  and  in  spite  of  Pa  Blanchard 's 
ways  she  had  led  a  happy  life.  In  the  old  days 
there  had  been  friends  and  neighbours,  now  all 
lost  in  course  of  removals  from  one  part  of  Lon- 
don to  another,  so  that  the  girls  were  without 
friends  and  knew  intimately  no  women  older  than 
themselves.  Mrs.  Blanchard,  perhaps  in  accord 


THE  TREAT  53 

with  her  cheerfulness,  had  been  a  complacent, 
selfish  little  woman,  very  neat  and  clean,  and  dis- 
posed to  keep  her  daughters  in  their  place.  Jenny 
had  been  her  favourite ;  and  even  so  early  had  the 
rivalry  between  them  been  established.  Besides 
this,  Emmy  had  received  all  the  rebuffs  needed 
to  check  in  her  the  same  complacent  selfishness 
that  distinguished  her  mother.  She  had  been 
frustrate  all  along,  first  by  her  mother,  then  by 
her  mother's  preference  for  Jenny,  finally  (after 
a  period  during  which  she  dominated  the  house- 
hold after  her  mother's  death)  by  Jenny  herself. 
It  was  thus  not  upon  a  pleasant  record  of  personal 
success  that  Emmy  could  look  back,  but  rather 
upon  a  series  of  chagrins  of  which  each  was  the 
harder  to  bear  because  of  the  history  of  its  pre- 
cursors. Emmy,  between  eighteen  and  nineteen 
at  the  time  of  her  mother's  death,  had  grasped 
her  opportunity,  and  had  made  the  care  of  the 
household  her  lot.  She  still  bore,  what  was  a 
very  different  reading  of  her  ambition,  the  cares 
of  the  household.  Jenny,  as  she  grew  up,  hacl 
proved  unruly;  Pa  Blanchard's  illness  had  made 
home  service  compulsory;  and  so  matters  were 
like  to  remain  indefinitely.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
Emmy  was  restive  and  unhappy  as  she  saw  her 
youth  going  and  her  horizons  closing  upon  her 
with  the  passing  of  each  year!  If  she  had  been 
wholly  selfish  that  fact  would  have  been  enough 


54  NOCTURNE 

to  sour  her  temper.  But  another,  emotionally 
more  potent,  fact  produced  in  Emmy  feelings  of 
still  greater  stress.  To  that  fact  she  had  this 
evening  given  involuntary  expression.  Now,  how 
would  she,  how  could  she,  handle  her  destiny? 
Jenny,  shrewdly  thinking  as  she  sat  with  her 
father  in  the  kitchen  and  heard  Emmy  open  the 
front  door,  pondered  deeply  as  to  her  sister 's 
ability  to  turn  to  account  her  own  sacrifice. 

iv 

Within  a  moment  Alf  Rylett  appeared  in  the 
doorway  of  the  kitchen,  Emmy  standing  behind" 
him  until  he  moved  forward,  and  then  closing  the 
door  and  leaning  back  against  it.  His  first  glance 
was  in  the  direction  of  Jenny,  who,  however,  did 
not  rise  as  she  would  ordinarily  have  done.  He 
glanced  quickly  at  her  face  and  from  her  face  to 
her  hands,  so  busily  engaged  in  manipulating  the 
materials  from  which  she  was  to  re-trim  her  hat. 
Then  he  looked  at  Pa  Blanchard,  whom  he 
touched  lightly  and  familiarly  upon  the  shoulder. 
Alf  was  a  rather  squarely  built  young  man  of 
thirty,  well  under  six  feet,  but  not  ungainly.  He 
had  a  florid,  reddish  complexion,  and  his  hair  was 
of  a  common  but  unnamed  colour,  between  brown 
and  grey,  curly  and  crisp.  He  was  clean-shaven. 
Alf  was  obviously  one  who  worked  with  his  hands : 
in  the  little  kitchen  he  appeared  to  stand  upon  the 


THE  TREAT  55 

tips  of  his  toes,  in  order  that  his  walk  might  not 
be  too  noisy.  That  fact  might  have  suggested 
either  mere  nervousness  or  a  greater  liking  for 
life  out  of  doors.  When  he  walked  it  was  as 
though  he  did  it  all  of  a  piece,  so  that  his  shoulders 
moved  as  well  as  his  legs.  The  habit  was  shown 
as  he  lunged  forward  to  grip  Jenny's  hand. 
When  he  spoke  he  shouted,  and  he  addressed  Pa 
as  a  boy  might  have  done  who  was  not  quite  com- 
pletely at  his  ease,  but  who  thought  it  necessary 
to  pretend  that  he  was  so. 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Blanchard!"  he  cried  bois- 
terously. "Sitting  by  the  fire,  I  see!" 

Pa  looked  at  him  rather  vacantly,  apparently 
straining  his  memory  in  order  to  recognise  the 
new-comer.  It  was  plain  that  as  a  personal  mat- 
ter he  had  no  immediate  use  for  Alf  Rylett;  but 
he  presently  nodded  his  head. 

"Sitting  by  the  fire,"  he  confirmed.  "Getting 
a  bit  warm.  It's  coid  to-night.  Is  there  any 
noos,  Alf  Rylett !" 

"Lots  of  it!"  roared  Alf,  speaking  as  if  it  had 
been  to  a  deaf  man  or  a  foreigner.  "They  say 
this  fire  at  Southwark  means  ten  thousand  pounds 
damage.  Big  factory  there — gutted.  Of  course, 
no  outside  fire  escapes.  As  usual.  Fully  in- 
sured, though.  It'll  cost  them  nothing.  You 
can't  help  wondering  what  causes  these  fires  when 
they're  heavily  insured.  Eh?  Blazing  all  night, 


5&  NOCTURNE 

it  was.  Twenty-five  engines.  Twenty-five,  mind 
you!  That  shows  it  was  pretty  big,  eh?  I  saw 
the  red  in  the  sky,  myself.  'Well,'  I  thought  to 
myself,  'there's  somebody  stands  to  lose  some- 
thing,' I  thought.  But  the  insurance  companies 
are  too  wide  to  stand  all  the  risk  themselves. 
They  share  it  out,  you  know.  It's  a  mere  flea- 
bite  to  them.  And  ...  a  ...  well  then  there 's 
a  ...  See,  then  there's  a  bigamy  case." 

"Hey?"      cried     Pa     sharply,     brightening. 
"What's  that  about?" 

"Nothing  much.  Only  a  couple  of  skivvies. 
About  ten  pound  three  and  fourpence  between 
the  pair  of  them.  That  was  all  he  got."  Pa's 
interest  visibly  faded.  He  gurgled  at  his  pipe 
and  turned  his  face  towards  the  mantelpiece. 
"And  .  .  .  a  .  .  .let's  see,  what  else  is  there?" 
Alf  racked  his  brains,  puffing  a  little  and  arching 
his  brows  at  the  two  girls,  who  seemed  both  to  be 
listening,  Emmy  intently,  as  though  she  were 
repeating  his  words  to  herself.  He  went  on: 
"Tram  smash  in  Newcastle.  Car  went  off  the 
points.  Eleven  injured.  Nobody  killed.  .  .  . " 
"I  don't  call  that  much,"  said  Jenny,  critically, 
with  a  pin  in  her  mouth.  "Not  much  more  than 
I  told  him  an  hour  ago.  He  wants  a  murder,  or 
a  divorce.  All  these  little  tin-pot  accidents  aren't 
worth  printing  at  all.  What  he  wants  is  the  cross- 
examination  of  the  man  who  found  the  bones." 


THE  TREAT  57 

It  was  comical  to  notice  the  change  on  Alf  at 
Jenny's  interruption.  From  the  painful  concen- 
tration upon  memory  which  had  brought  his  eye- 
brows together  there  appeared  in  his  expression 
the  most  delighted  ease,  a  sort  of  archness  that 
made  his  face  look  healthy  and  honest. 

"What's  that  you're  doing?"  he  eagerly  in- 
quired, forsaking  Pa,  and  obviously  thankful  at 
having  an  opportunity  to  address  Jenny  directly. 
He  came  over  and  stood  by  the  table,  in  spite  of 
the  physical  effort  which  Emmy  involuntarily 
made  to  will  that  he  should  not  do  so.  Emmy's 
eyes  grew  tragic  at  his  intimate,  possessive  man- 
ner in  speaking  to  Jenny.  "I  say!"  continued 
Alf,  admiringly.  "A  new  hat,  is  it?  Smart! 
Looks  absolutely  Al.  Real  West  End  style,  isn't 
it?  Going  to  have  some  chiffong?" 

"Sit  down,  Alf."  It  was  Emmy  who  spoke, 
motioning  him  to  a  chair  opposite  to  Pa.  He 
took  it,  his  shoulder  to  Jenny,  while  Emmy  sat  by 
the  table,  looking  at  him,  her  hands  in  her  lap. 

"How  is  he?"  Alf  asked,  jerking  his  head  at 
Pa.  '  *  Perked  up  when  I  said '  bigamy, '  didn  't  he ! " 

"He's  been  very  good,  I  will  say,"  answered 
Emmy.  "Been  quiet  all  day.  And  he  ate  his 
supper  as  good  as  gold."  Jenny's  smile  and  little 
amused  crouching  of  the  shoulders  caught  her 
eye.  "Well,  so  he  did!"  she  insisted.  Jenny 
took  no  notice.  "He's  had  his — mustn't  say  it, 


58  NOCTURNE 

because  he  always  hears  that  word,  and  it's  not 
time  for  his  evening  .  .  .  Eight  o  'clock  he  has  it. ' ' 

"What's  that?"  said  Alf,  incautiously. 
"Beer?" 

"Beer!"  cried  Pa.  "Beer!"  It  was  the  cry 
of  one  who  had  been  malignantly  defrauded,  a 
piteous  wail. 

"There!"  said  both  the  girls,  simultaneously. 
Jenny  added:  "Now  you've  done  it!" 

"All  right,  Pa!  Not  time  yet!"  But  Emmy 
went  to  the  kitchen  cupboard  as  Pa  continued  to 
express  the  yearning  that  filled  his  aged  heart. 

' '  Sorry ! ' '  whispered  Alf.  *  *  Hold  me  hand  out, 
naughty  boy!" 

"He's  like  a  baby  with  his  titty  bottle,"  ex- 
plained Emmy.  "Now  he'll  be  quiet  again." 

Alf  fidgeted  a  little.  This  contretemps  had  un- 
nerved him.  He  was  less  sure  of  himself. 

' '  Well, ' '  he  said  at  last,  darkly.  '  *  What  I  came 
in  about  .  .  .  Quarter  to  eight,  is  it?  By  Jove, 
I'm  late.  That's  telling  Mr.  Blanchard  all  the 
news.  The  fact  is,  I've  got  a  couple  of  tickets 
for  the  theatre  down  the  road — for  this  evening, 
I  thought  .  .  .  erum  ..." 

"Oh,  extravagance!"  cried  Jenny,  gaily,  drop- 
ping the  pin  from  between  her  lips  and  looking 
in  an  amused  flurry  at  Emmy's  anguished  face 
opposite.  It  was  as  though  a  chill  had  struck 
across  the  room,  as  though  both  Emmy's  heart 


THE  TREAT  59 

and  her  own  had  given  a  sharp  twist  at  the  shock. 

"Ah,  that's  where  you're  wrong.  That's  what 
cleverness  does  for  you."  Alf  nodded  his  head 
deeply  and  reprovingly.  "Given  to  me,  they 
were,  by  a  pal  o'  mine  who  works  at  the  theatre. 
They're  for  to-night.  I  thought " 

Jenny,  with  her  heart  beating,  was  stricken  for 
an  instant  with  panic.  She  bent  her  head  lower, 
holding  the  rose  against  the  side  of  her  hat,  watch- 
ing it  with  a  zealous  eye,  once  again  to  test 
the  effect.  He  thought  she  was  coquetting,  and 
leaned  a  little  towards  her.  He  would  have  been 
ready  to  touch  her  face  teasingly  with  his  fore- 
finger. 

"Oh,"  Jenny  exclaimed,  with  a  hurried  assump- 
tion of  matter  of  fact  ease  suddenly  ousting  her 
panic.  * '  That 's  very  good.  So  you  thought  you  'd 
take  Emmy!  That  was  a  very  good  boy!" 

'  *  I  thought  ..."  heavily  stammered  Alf,  his 
eyes  opening  in  a  surprised  way  as  he  found  him- 
self thus  headed  off  from  his  true  intention.  He 
stared  blankly  at  Jenny,  until  she  thought  he 
looked  like  the  bull  on  the  hoardings  who  has 
"heard  that  they  want  more."  Emmy  stared  at 
her  also,  quite  unguardedly,  a  concentrated  stare 
of  agonised  doubt  and  impatience.  Emmy's  face 
grew  pinched  and  sallow  at  the  unexpected  strain 
upon  her  nerves. 

"That   was   what   you   thought,   wasn't    it?" 


60  NOCTURNE 

Jenny  went  on  impudently,  shooting  a  sideways 
glance  at  him  that  made  Alf  tame  with  helpless- 
ness. "Poor  old  Em  hasn't  had  a  treat  for  ever 
so  long.  Do  her  good  to  go.  You  did  mean 
that,  didn't  you?" 

"I  .  .  ."  said  Alf.  "I  ..."  He  was  in- 
clined for  a  moment  to  bluster.  He  looked 
curiously  at  Jenny's  profile,  judicial  in  its  sever- 
ity. Then  some  kind  of  tact  got  the  better  of 
his  first  impulse.  "Well,  I  thought  one  of  you 
girls  .  .  .  "  he  said.  "Will  you  come,  Em?  Have 
to  look  sharp." 

"Really?"  Emmy  jumped  up,  her  face  scarlet 
and  tears  of  joy  in  her  eyes.  She  did  not  care 
how  it  had  been  arranged.  Her  pride  was  un- 
aroused;  the  other  thought,  the  triumph  of  the 
delicious  moment,  was  overwhelming.  After- 
wards— ah,  no  no!  She  would  not  think.  She 
was  going.  She  was  actually  going.  In  a  blur 
she  saw  their  faces,  their  kind  eyes  .  .  . 

"Good  boy!"  cried  Jenny.  "Buck  up,  Em,  if 
you're  going  to  change  your  dress.  Seats!  My 
word!  How  splendid!"  She  clapped  her  hands 
quickly,  immediately  again  taking  up  her  work 
so  as  to  continue  it.  Into  her  eyes  had  come 
once  more  that  strange  expression  of  pitying  con- 
tempt. Her  white  hands  flashed  in  the  wan  light 
as  she  quickly  threaded  her  needle  and  knotted 
the  silk. 


CHAPTER  HI:  ROWS 


AFTER  Emmy  had  hurried  out  of  the  room  to 
change  her  dress,  Alf  stood,  still  apparently 
stupefied  at  the  unscrupulous  rush  of  Jenny's 
feminine  tactics,  rubbing  his  hand  against  the 
back  of  his  head.  He  looked  cautiously  at  Pa 
Blanchard,  and  from  him  back  to  the  mysterious 
unknown  who  had  so  recently  defeated  his  object. 
Alf  may  or  may  not  have  prepared  some  kind  of 
set  speech  of  invitation  on  his  way  to  the  house. 
Obviously  it  is  a  very  difficult  thing,  where  there 
are  two  girls  in  a  family,  to  invite  one  of  them  and 
not  the  other  to  an  evening's  orgy.  If  it  had  not 
previously  occurred  to  Alf  to  think  of  the  diffi- 
culty quite  as  clearly  as  he  was  now  being  made 
to  do,  that  must  have  been  because  he  thought  of 
Emmy  as  imbedded  in  domestic  affairs.  After 
all,  damn  it,  as  he  was  thinking;  if  you  want  one 
girl  it  is  rotten  luck  to  be  fobbed  off  with  another. 
Alf  knew  quite  well  the  devastating  phrase,  at 
one  time  freely  used  as  an  irresistible  quip  (like 
"There's  hair"  or  "That's  all  right,  tell  your 
mother;  it'll  be  ninepence")  by  which  one  sug- 
gested disaster — "And  that  spoilt  his  evening." 

61 


62  NOCTURNE 

The  phrase  was  in  his  mind,  horrible  to  feel.  Yet 
what  could  he  have  done  in  face  of  the  direct 
assault!  "Must  be  a  gentleman."  He  could 
hardly  have  said,  before  Emmy:  "No,  it's  you 
I  want ! ' '  He  began  to  think  about  Emmy.  She 
was  all  right — a  quiet  little  piece,  and  all  that. 
But  she  hadn't  got  Jenny's  cheek!  That  was  it! 
Jenny  had  got  the  devil's  own  cheek,  and  this  was 
an  example  of  it.  But  this  was  an  unwelcome 
example  of  it.  He  ruminated  still  further;  until 
he  found  he  was  standing  on  one  foot  and  rubbing 
the  back  of  his  head,  just  like  any  stage  booby. 

"Oh,  damn!"  he  cried,  putting  his  raised  foot 
firmly  on  the  ground  and  bringing  his  wandering 
fist  down  hard  into  the  open  palm  of  his  other 
hand. 

"Here,  here!"  protested  Jenny,  pretending  to 
be  scandalised.  "That's  not  the  sort  of  language 
to  use  before  Pa!  He's  not  used  to  it.  We're 
awfully  careful  what  we  say  when  Pa's  here!" 

"You're  making  a  fool  of  me!"  spluttered  Alf, 
glaring  at  her.  "That's  about  the  size  of  it!" 

"What  about  your  pa  and  ma?"  she  inquired, 
gibing  at  him.  "I've  done  nothing.  Why  don't 
you  sit  down.  Of  course  you  feel  a  fool,  stand- 
ing. I  always  do,  when  the  manager  sends  for 
me.  Think  I'm  going  to  get  the  sack."  She 
thought  he  was  going  to  bellow  at  her:  "I  hear 
they  want  more!"  The  mere  notion  of  it  made 


ROWS  63 

her  smile,  and  Alf  imagined  that  she  was  still 
laughing  at  her  own  manoeuvre  or  at  her  imperti- 
nent jest. 

"What  did  you  do  it  for?"  he  asked,  coming 
to  the  table. 

"Cause  it  was  all  floppy.  What  did  you  think! 
Why,  the  girls  all  talk  about  me  wearing  it  so 
long. ' ' 

"I'm  not  talking  about  that,"  he  said,  in  a  new 
voice  of  exasperated  determination.  "You  know 
what  I'm  talking  about.  Oh,  yes,  you  do!  I'm 
talking  about  those  tickets.  And  me.  And  you!" 

Jenny's  eyes  contracted.  She  looked  fixedly  at 
her  work.  Her  hands  continued  busy. 

"Well,  you're  going  to  take  Emmy,  aren't 
you!"  she  prevaricated.  "You  asked  her  to  go." 

"No!"  he  said.  "I'm  going  with  her,  because 
she 's  said  she  '11  go.  But  it  was  you  that  asked  her. ' ' 

"Did  I?  How  could  I?  They  weren't  mine. 
You're  a  man.  You  brought  the  tickets.  You 
asked  her  yourself."  Jenny  shook  her  head. 
"Oh,  no,  Alf  Eylett.  You  mustn't  blame  me. 
Take  my  advice,  my  boy.  You  be  very  glad 
Emmy's  going.  If  you  mean  me,  I  should  have 
said  'No,'  because  I've  got  to  do  this  hat.  Emmy's 
going  to-night.  You'll  enjoy  yourself  far  more." 

"Oh  -  -!"  He  did  not  use  an  oath,  but  it 
was  implied.  "What  did  you  do  it  for?  Didn't 
you  want  to  oome  yourself?  No,  look  here, 


64  NOCTURNE 

Jenny :  I  want  to  know  what 's  going  on.  You  Ve 
always  come  with  me  before. ' '  He  glared  at  her 
in  perplexity,  puzzled  to  the  depths  of  his  intelli- 
gence by  a  problem  beyond  its  range.  Women 
had  always  been  reported  to  him  as  a  mystery; 
/but  he  had  never  heeded. 

"It's  Emmy's  turn,  then,"  Jenny  went  on. 
She  could  not  resist  the  display  of  a  sisterly 
magnanimity,  although  it  was  not  the  true 
magnanimity,  and  in  fact  had  no  relation  to  the 
truth.  "Poor  old  Em  gets  stuck  in  here  day 
after  day,"  she  pleaded.  "She's  always  with  Pa 
till  he  thinks  she's  a  fixture.  Well,  why  shouldn't 
she  have  a  little  pleasure?  You  get  her  some 
chocs  .  .  .  at  that  shop.  .  .  .  Tow  know.  It'll 
be  the  treat  of  her  life.  She'll  be  as  grateful  to 
you  for  it.  ...  Oh,  I'm  very  glad  she's  got  the 
chance  of  going.  It'll  keep  her  happy  for  days !" 
Jenny,  trying  with  all  her  might  to  set  the  affair 
straight  and  satisfy  everybody,  was  appealing 
to  his  vanity  to  salve  his  vanity.  Alf  saw  himself 
recorded  as  a  public  benefactor.  He  perceived 
the  true  sublimity  of  altruism. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  doggedly,  recovering  himself 
and  becoming  a  man,  becoming  Alf  Rylett,  once 
again.  "That's  all  bally  fine.  Sounds  well  as 
you  put  it;  but  you  knew  as  well  as  I  did  that  I 
came  to  take  you.  I  say  nothing  against  Em. 
She's  a  good  sort;  but " 


ROWS  65 

Jenny  suddenly  kindled.  He  had  never  seen 
her  so  fine. 

"She's  the  best  sort!"  she  said,  with  anima- 
tion. "And  don't  you  forget  it,  Alf.  Me — why, 
I'm  as  selfish  as  ...  as  dirt  beside  her.  Look 
a  little  closer,  my  lad.  You'll  see  Em's  worth 
two  of  me.  Any  day!  You  think  yourself  jolly 
lucky  she's  going  with  you.  That's  all  I've  got 
to  say  to  you!" 

She  had  pushed  her  work  back,  and  was  looking 
up  at  him  with  an  air  of  excitement.  She  had 
really  been  moved  by  a  generous  impulse.  Her 
indifference  to  Alf  no  longer  counted.  It  was 
swept  away  by  a  feeling  of  loyalty  to  Emmy. 
The  tale  she  had  told,  the  plea  she  had  advanced 
upon  Emmy's  behalf,  if  it  had  not  influenced  him, 
had  sent  a  warm  thrill  of  conviction  through  her 
own  heart.  When  she  came  thus  to  feel  deeply 
she  knew  as  if  by  instinct  that  Emmy,  irritable 
unsatisfied  Emmy,  was  as  much  superior  to  Alf 
as  she  herself  was  superior  to  him.  A  wave  of 
arrogance  swept  her.  Beeause  he  was  a  man, 
and  therefore  so  delectable  in  the  lives  of  two 
lonely  girls,  he  was  basely  sure  of  his  power  to 
choose  from  among  them  at  will.  He  had  no 
such  power  at  that  moment,  in  Jenny's  mind. 
He  was  the  clay,  for  Emmy  or  herself  to  mould 
to  their  own  advantage. 

"You    can    think    yourself    jolly    lucky,    my 


66  NOCTURNE 

lad!"    she    repeated.      "I    can    tell    you    that 
much  !  '  * 


Jenny  leant  back  in  her  chair  exhausted  by  her 
excitement.  Alf  reached  round  for  the  chair  he 
had  left,  and  brought  it  to  the  table.  He  sat 
down,  his  elbows  on  the  table  and  his  hands 
clasped;  and  he  looked  directly  at  Jenny  as 
though  he  were  determined  to  explode  this  false 
bubble  of  misunderstanding  which  she  was  sedu- 
lously creating.  As  he  looked  at  her,  with  his  face 
made  keen  by  the  strength  of  his  resolve,  Jenny 
felt  her  heart  turn  to  water.  She  was  physically 
afraid  of  him,  not  because  he  had  any  power  to 
move  her,  but  because  in  sheer  bullock-like 
strength  he  was  too  much  for  her,  as  in  tenacity 
he  had  equally  an  advantage.  As  a  skirmisher, 
or  in  guerrilla  warfare,  in  which  he  might  always 
retire  to  a  hidden  fastness,  baffling  pursuers  by 
innumerable  ruses  and  doublings,  Jenny  could 
hold  her  own.  On  the  plain,  in  face  of  superior 
strength,  she  had  not  the  solid  force  needed  to 
resist  strong  will  and  clear  issues.  Alf  looked 
steadily  at  her,  his  reddish  cheeks  more  red,  his 
obstinate  mouth  more  obstinate,  so  that  she  could 
imagine  the  bones  of  his  jaws  cracking  with  his 
determination. 

'  *  It  won  't  do,  Jen,  '  '  he  said.    l  *  And  you  know  it.  '  ' 


ROWS  67 

Jenny  wavered.  Her  eyes  flinched  from  the 
necessary  task  of  facing  him  down.  Where 
women  of  more  breeding  have  immeasurable  re- 
sources of  tradition  behind  them,  to  quell  any 
such  inquisition,  she  was  by  training  defenceless. 
She  had  plenty  of  pluck,  plenty  of  adroitness; 
but  she  could  only  play  the  sex  game  with  Alf 
very  crudely  because  he  was  not  fine  enough  to 
be  diverted  by  such  finesse  as  she  could  employ. 
All  Jenny  could  do  was  to  play  for  safety  in 
the  passage  of  time.  If  she  could  beat  him  off 
until  Emmy  returned  she  could  be  safe  for  to- 
night ;  and  if  she  were  safe  now — anything  might 
happen  another  day  to  bring  about  her  liberation. 

"Bullying  won't  do.  I  grant  that,"  she  re- 
torted defiantly.  "You  needn't  think  it  will." 
She  jerked  her  head. 

"We're  going  to  have  this  out,"  Alf  went  on. 
Jenny  darted  a  look  of  entreaty  at  the  kicking 
clock  which  lay  so  helplessly  upon  its  side.  If 
only  the  clock  would  come  to  her  aid,  forgetting 
the  episode  of  the  tea-cosy! 

"Take  you  all  your  time,"  she  said  swiftly. 
"Why,  the  theatre's  all  full  by  now.  The  people 
are  all  in.  They're  tuning  up  for  the  overture. 
Look  at  it!"  She  pointed  a  wavering  finger  at 
the  clock. 

"We're  going  to  have  this  out — now!"  repeated 
Alf.  "You  know  why  I  brought  the  tickets  here. 


68  NOCTURNE 

It  was  because  I  wanted  to  take  you.  It's  no 
good  denying  it.  That's  enough.  Somehow— 
I  don't  know  why — you  don't  want  to  go;  and 
while  I'm  not  looking  you  shove  old  Em  on  to 
me." 

"That's  what  you  say,"  Jenny  protested.  Alt' 
took  no  notice  of  her  interruption.  He  doggedly 
proceeded. 

"As  I  say,  Em's  all  right  enough.  No  fault 
to  find  with  her.  But  she's  not  you.  And  it's 
you  I  wanted.  Now,  if  I  take  her — 

"You'll  enjoy  it  very  much,"  she  weakly  as- 
serted. "Ever  so  much.  Besides,  Alf," — she  be- 
gan to  appeal  to  him,  in  an  attempt  to  wheedle 
—"Em's  a  real  good  sort.  .  .  .  You  don't  know 
half  the  things  ..." 

"I  know  all  about  Em.  I  don't  need  you  to 
tell  me  what  she  is.  I  can  see  for  myself."  Alf 
rocked  a  little  with  an  ominous  obstinacy.  His 
eyes  were  fixed  upon  her  with  an  unwinking  stare. 
It  was  as  though,  having  delivered  a  blow  with 
the  full  weight  of  party  bias,  he  were  desiring 
her  to  take  a  common-sense  view  of  a  vehement 
political  issue. 

"What  can  you  see?"  With  a  feeble  dash  of 
spirit,  Jenny  had  attempted  tactical  flight.  The 
sense  of  it  made  her  feel  as  she  had  done,  as  a 
little  girl,  in  playing  touch ;  when,  with  a  swerve, 
she  had  striven  to  elude  the  pursuer.  So  tense 


ROWS  69 

were  her  nerves  on  such  occasions  that  she  turned 
what  is  called  "goosey"  with  the  feel  of  the 
evaded  fingers. 

Alf  rolled  his  head  again,  slightly  losing  his 
temper  at  the  inconvenient  question,  which,  if 
he  had  tried  to  answer  it,  might  have  diverted 
him  from  the  stern  chase  upon  which  he  was  en- 
gaged. The  sense  of  that  made  him  doubly  re- 
solved upon  sticking  to  the  point. 

"Oh,  never  you  mind,"  he  said,  stubbornly. 
"Quite  enough  of  that.  Now  the  question  is — 
and  it's  a  fair  one, — why  did  you  shove  Em  on 
to  me?" 

' '  I  didn  't !    You  did  it  yourself ! ' ' 

"Well,  that's  a  flat  lie!"  he  cried,  slapping  the 
table  in  a  sudden  fury,  and  glaring  at  her. 
"That's  what  that  is." 

Jenny  crimsoned.  It  made  the  words  no 
better  that  Alf  had  spoken  truly.  She  was  deeply 
offended.  They  were  both  now  sparkling  with 
temper,  restless  with  it,  and  Jenny's  teeth 
showing. 

"I'm  a  liar,  am  I!"  she  exclaimed.  "Well, 
you  can  just  lump  it,  then.  I  shan't  say  another 
word.  Not  if  you  call  me  a  liar.  You've  come 
here.  .  ."  Her  breath  caught,  and  for  a  second 
she  could  not  speak.  "You've  come  here  kindly 
to  let  us  lick  your  boots,  I  suppose.  Is  that  it? 
Well,  we're  not  going  to  do  it.  We  never  have, 


70  NOCTURNE 

and  we  never  will.  Never!  It's  a  drop  for  you, 
you  think,  to  take  Emmy  out.  A  bit  of  kindness 
on  your  part.  She's  not  up  to  West  End  style. 
That  it!  But  you  needn't  think  you're  too  good 
for  her.  There's  no  reason,  I'm  sure.  You're 
not!  .  .  .  All  because  you're  a  man.  Auch! 
I'm  sick  of  the  men!  You  think  you've  only  got 
to  whistle.  Yes,  you  do !  You  think  if  you  crook 
your  little  finger  .  .  .  Oh  no,  my  lad.  That's 
where  you're  wrong.  You're  making  a  big  mis- 
take there.  We  can  look  after  ourselves,  thank 
you!  No  chasing  after  the  men!  Pa's  taught 
us  that.  We're  not  quite  alone.  We  haven't  got 
to  take — we've  neither  of  us  got  to  take — what- 
ever's  offered  to  us  .  .  .as  you  think.  We've 
got  Pa  still!" 

Her  voice  had  risen.  An  unexpected  interrup- 
tion stopped  the  argument  for  the  merest  fraction 
of  time. 

' '  Aye, ' '  said  Pa.  ' '  They  've  got  their  old  Pa ! " 
He  had  taken  his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth  and  was 
looking  towards  the  combatants  with  an  eye  that 
for  one  instant  seemed  the  eye  of  perfect  compre- 
hension. It  frightened  Jenny  as  much  as  it  dis- 
concerted Alf.  It  was  to  both  of  them,  but  espe- 
cially to  Alf,  like  the  shock  of  a  cold  sponge  laid 
upon  a  heated  brow. 

"I  never  said  you  hadn't!"  he  sulkily  said,  and 
turned  round  to  look  amazedly  at  Pa.  But  Pa 


ROWS  71 

had  subsided  once  more,  and  was  drinking  with 
mournful  avidity  from  his  tankard.  Occupied 
with  the  tankard,  Pa  had  neither  eye  nor  thought 
for  anything  else.  Alf  resumed  after  the  baffled 
pause.  "Yes.  You've  got  him  all  right 
enough.  .  .  . "  Then:  "You're  trying  to  turn 
it  off  with  your  monkey  tricks!"  he  said  sud- 
denly. "But  I  see  what  it  is.  I  was  a  fool  not 
to  spot  it  at  once.  You've  got  some  other  fellow 
in  tow.  I'm  not  good  enough  for  you  any  longer. 
Got  no  use  for  me  yourself;  but  you  don't  mind 
turning  me  over  to  old  Em.  ..."  He  shook  his 
head.  "Well,  I  don't  understand  it,"  he  con- 
cluded miserably.  "I  used  to  think  you  was 
straight,  Jen. ' ' 

"I  am!"  It  was  a  desperate  cry,  from  her 
heart.  Alf  sighed. 

"You're  not  playing  the  game,  Jen  old  girl," 
he  said,  more  kindly,  more  thoughtfully.  "That's 
what's  the  matter.  I  don't  know  what  it  is,  or 
what  you're  driving  at;  but  that's  what's  wrong. 
What's  the  matter  with  me?  Anything?  I 
know  I'm  not  much  of  a  one  to  shout  the  odds 
about.  I  don't  expect  you  to  do  that.  Never 
did.  But  I  never  played  you  a  trick  like  this. 
What  is  it?  What's  the  game  you  think  you're 
playing?"  When  she  did  not  answer  his  urgent 
and  humble  appeal  he  went  on  in  another  tone: 
"I  shall  find  out,  mind  you.  It's  not  going  to 


72  NOCTURNE 

stop  here.  I  shall  ask  Emmy.  I  can  trust  her." 
"You  can't  ask  her!"  Jenny  cried.  It  was 
wrung  from  her.  "You  just  dare  to  ask  her. 
If  she  knew  you  hadn't  meant  to  take  her  to-night, 
it  ud  break  her  heart.  It  would.  There!"  Her 
voice  had  now  the  ring  of  intense  sincerity.  She 
was  not  afraid,  not  defiant.  She  was  a  woman, 
defending  another  woman's  pride. 

Alf  groaned.     His  cheeks  became  less  ruddy. 
He  looked  quickly  at  the  door,  losing  confidence. 
"No:  I  don't  know  what  it  is,"  he  said  again. 
"I  don't  understand  it. ' '    He  sat,  biting  his  under 
lip,  miserably  undetermined.    His  grim  front  had 
disappeared.    He  was,  from  the  conquering  hero, 
become  a  crestfallen  young  man.    He  could  not 
be  passionate  with  Pa  there.    He  felt  that  if  only 
she  were  in  his  arms  she  could  not  be  untruth- 
ful, could  not  resist  him  at  all ;  but  with  the  table 
between  them  she  was  safe  from  any  attack.    He 
was  powerless.     And  he  could  not  say  he  loved 
her.    He  would  never  be  able  to  bring  himself  to 
say  that  to  any  woman.     A  woman  might  ask 
him  if  he  loved  her,  and  he  would  awkwardly  an- 
swer that  of  course  he  did;  but  it  was  not  in  his 
nature  to  proclaim  the  fact  in  so  many  words. 
He  had  not  the  fluency,  the  dramatic  sense,  the 
imaginative  power  to  sink  and  to  forget  his  own 
self-consciousness.    And  so  Jenny  had  won  that 
battle — not  gloriously,  but  through  the  sheer  mis- 


ROWS  73 

chanoe  of  circumstances.  Alf  was  beaten,  and 
Jenny  understood  it. 

"Don't  think  about  me,"  she  whispered,  in  a 
quick  pity.  Alf  still  shook  his  head,  reproach- 
fully eyeing  her  with  the  old  bull-like  concern. 
"I'm  not  worth  thinking  about.  I'm  only  a  beast. 
And  you  say  you  can  trust  Emmy.  .  .  .  She's 
ever  so  .  .  . " 

"Ah,  but  she  can't  make  me  mad  like  you  do!" 
he  said  simply.  "Jen,  will  you  come  another 
night  .  .  .  Do!"  He  was  beseeching  her,  his 
hands  stretched  towards  her  across  the  table,  as 
near  to  making  love  as  he  would  ever  be.  It  was 
his  last  faint  hope  for  the  changing  of  her  heart 
towards  him.  But  Jenny  slowly  shook  her  head 
from  side  to  side,  a  judge  refusing  the  prisoner's 
final  desperate  entreaties. 

"No,"  she  said.  "It's  no  good,  Alf.  It'll 
never  be  any  good  as  long  as  I  live." 

iii 

Alf  put  out  his  hand  and  covered  Jenny's  hand 
with  it ;  and  the  hand  he  held,  after  a  swift  move- 
ment, remained  closely  imprisoned.  And  just  at 
that  moment,  when  the  two  were  striving  for 
mastery,  the  door  opened  and  Emmy  came  back 
into  the  room.  She  was  fully  dressed  for  going 
out,  her  face  charmingly  set  off  by  the  hat  she 
had  offered  earlier  to  Jenny,  her  eyes  alight 


74  NOCTURNE 

with  happiness,  her  whole  bearing  unutterably 
changed. 

"Now  who's  waiting!"  she  demanded;  and  at 
the  extraordinary  sight  before  her  she  drew  a  quick 
breath,  paling.  It  did  not  matter  that  the  cling- 
ing hands  were  instantly  apart,  or  that  Alf  rose 
hurriedly  to  meet  her.  "What's  that?"  she 
asked,  in  a  trembling  tone.  "What  are  you 
doing?"  As  though  she  felt  sick  and  faint,  she 
sat  sharply  down  upon  her  old  chair  near  the  door. 
Jenny  rallied. 

"Only  a  kid's  game,"  she  said.  "Nothing  at 
all."  Alf  said  nothing,  looking  at  neither  girl. 
Emmy  tried  to  speak  again ;  but  at  first  the  words 
would  not  come.  Finally  she  went  on,  with  dread- 
ful understanding. 

"Didn't  you  want  to  take  me,  Alf?  Did  you 
want  her  to  go?" 

It  was  as  though  her  short  absence,  perhaps 
even  the  change  of  costume,  had  worked  a  curious 
and  cognate  change  in  her  mind.  Perhaps  it  was 
that  in  her  flushed  happiness  she  had  forgotten 
to  be  suspicious,  or  had  blindly  misread  the  mean- 
ings of  the  earlier  colloquy,  as  a  result  of  which 
the  invitation  had  been  given. 

"Don't  be  so  silly!"  quickly  cried  Jenny.  "Of 
course  he  wanted  you  to  go ! " 

"Alf!"  Emmy's  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him 
with  a  look  of  urgent  entreaty.  She  looked  at 


ROWS  75 

Alf  with  all  the  love,  all  the  extraordinary  inti- 
mate confidence  with  which  women  of  her  class 
do  so  generally  regard  the  men  they  love,  ready 
to  yield  judgment  itself  to  his  decision.  When 
he  did  not  answer,  but  stood  still  before  them 
like  a  red-faced  boy,  staring  down  at  the 
floor,  she  seemed  to  shudder,  and  began  de- 
spairingly to  unfasten  the  buttons  of  her  thick 
coat.  Jenny  darted  up  and  ran  to  check  the 
process. 

" Don't  be  a  fool!"  she  breathed.  "Like  that! 
You've  got  no  time  for  a  scene."  Turning  to 
Alf,  she  motioned  him  with  a  swift  gesture  to 
the  door.  "Look  sharp!"  she  cried. 

"I'm  not  going!"  Emmy  struggled  with 
Jenny 's  restraining  hands.  "  It 's  no  good  fussing 
me,  Jenny.  ...  I'm  not  going.  He  can  take 
who  he  likes.  But  it's  not  me." 

Alf  and  Jenny  exchanged  angry  glances,  each 
bitterly  blaming  the  other. 

"Em!"  Jenny  shouted.    "You're  mad!" 

"No,  I'm  not.  Let  me  go!  Let  me  go!  He 
didn't  want  me  to  go.  He  wanted  you.  Oh,  I 
knew  it.  I  was  a  fool  to  think  he  wanted  me." 
Then,  looking  with  a  sort  of  crazed  disdain  at 
Jenny,  she  said  coolly,  "Well,  how  is  it  you're 
not  ready?  Don't  you  see  your  substitute's  wait- 
ing? Your  land  lover!" 

"Land!"  cried  Alf.    "Land!    A  sailor!"    He 


76  NOCTURNE 

flushed  deeply,  raising  his  arms  a  little  as  if 
to  ward  off  some  further  revelation.  Jenny, 
desperate,  had  her  hands  higher  than  her  head, 
protestingly  quelling  the  scene.  In  a  loud  voice 
she  checked  them. 

"Do  .  .  .  not  ...  be  ...  fools!"  she  cried. 
"What's  all  the  fuss  about?  Simply  because 
Alf 's  a  born  booby,  standing  there  like  a  fool!  I 
can't  go.  I  wouldn't  go — even  if  he  wanted  me. 
But  he  wants  you!"  She  again  seized  Emmy, 
delaying  once  more  Emmy's  mechanical  unfasten- 
ing of  the  big  buttons  of  her  coat.  "Alf!  Get 
your  coat.  Get  her  out  of  the  house!  I  never 
heard  such  rubbish!  Alf,  say  .  .  .  tell  her  you 
meant  her  to  go!  Say  it  wasn't  me!" 

"I  shouldn't  believe  him,"  Emmy  said,  clearly. 
"I  know  I  saw  him  holding  your  hand." 

Jenny  laughed  hysterically. 

"What  a  fuss!"  she  exclaimed.  "He's  been 
doing  palmistry — reading  it.  All  about  .  .  . 
what's  going  to  happen  to  me.  Wasn't  it,  Alf!" 

Emmy  disregarded  her,  watching  Alf's  too- 
transparent  uneasiness. 

"You  always  were  a  little  lying  beast,"  she 
said,  venomously.  "A  trickster." 

"You  see!"  Jenny  said,  defiantly  to  Alf. 
"What  my  own  sister  says?" 

"So  you  were.  With  your  sailor.  .  .  .  And 
playing  the  fool  with  Alf!"  Emmy's  voice  rose. 


ROWS  77 

"You  always  were.  ...  I  wonder  Alf's  never 
seen  it  long  ago.  .  .  . " 

At  this  moment,  with  electrifying  suddenness, 
Pa  put  down  his  tankard. 

"What,  ain't  you  gone  yet?"  he  trembled.  "I 
thought  you  was  going  out ! ' ' 

"How  did  he  know?"  They  all  looked  sharply 
at  one  another,  sobered.  So,  for  one  instant,  they 
stood,  incapable  of  giving  any  explanation  to  the 
meekly  inquiring  old  man  who  had  disturbed 
their  quarrel.  Alf,  so  helpless  before  the  girls, 
was  steeled  by  the  interruption.  He  took  two 
steps  towards  Emmy. 

' '  We  11  have  this  out  later  on, ' '  he  said.  ' '  Mean- 
while .  .  .  Come  on,  Em!  It's  just  on  eight. 
Come  along,  there's  a  good  girl!"  He  stooped, 
took  her  hands,  and  drew  her  to  her  feet.  Then, 
with  uncommon  tenderness,  he  re-buttoned  her 
coat,  and,  with  one  arm  about  her,  led  Emmy  to 
the  door.  She  pressed  back,  but  it  was  against 
him,  within  the  magic  circle  of  his  arm,  suddenly 
deliriously  happy. 

Jenny,  still  panting,  stood  as  she  had  stood  for 
the  last  few  minutes,  and  watched  their  departure. 
She  heard  the  front  door  close  as  they  left  the 
house;  and  with  shaky  steps  went  and  slammed 
the  door  of  the  kitchen.  Trembling  violently, 
she  leant  against  the  door,  as  Emmy  had  done 
earlier.  For  a  moment  she  could  not  speak,  could 


78  NOCTURNE 

not  think  or  feel;  and  only  as  a  clock  in  the 
neighbourhood  solemnly  recorded  the  eighth  hour 
did  she  choke  down  a  little  sob,  and  say  with 
the  ghost  of  her  bereaved  irony: 
"That's  done  it!" 


CHAPTER  IV:  THE  WISH 

• 

i 

WAITING  until  she  had  a  little  recovered 
her  self-control,  Jenny  presently  moved 
from  the  door  to  the  fireplace,  and  proceeded 
methodically  to  put  coals  on  the  fire.  She  was 
still  shaking  slightly,  and  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  were  uncontrollably  twitching  with  alter- 
nate smiles  and  other  raiding  emotions;  so  that 
she  did  not  yet  feel  in  a  fit  state  to  meet  Pa's 
scrutiny.  He  might  be  the  old  fool  he  sometimes 
appeared  to  be,  and,  inconveniently,  he  might  not. 
Just  because  she  did  not  want  him  to  be  particu- 
larly bright  it  was  quite  probable  that  he  would 
have  a  flourish  of  brilliance.  That  is  as  it  occa- 
sionally happens,  in  the  dullest  of  mortals.  So 
Jenny  was  some  time  in  attending  to  the  fire,  until 
she  supposed  that  any  undue  redness  of  cheek 
might  be  imagined  to  have  been  occasioned  by 
her  strenuous  activities.  She  then  straightened 
herself  and  looked  down  at  Pa  with  a  curious 
mixture  of  protectiveness  and  anxiety. 

"Pleased  with  yourself,  aren't  youf"  she  in- 
quired, more  to  make  conversation  which  might 
engage  the  ancient  mind  in  ruminant  pastime  than 

79 


8o  NOCTURNE 

to  begin  any  series  of  inquiries  into  Pa's  mental 
states. 

"Eh,  Jenny?"  said  Pa,  staring  back  at  her. 
"Ain't  you- gone  out?  Is  it  Emmy  that's  gone 
out?  What  did  that  fool  Alf  Rylett  want?  He 
was  shouting.  ...  I  heard  him.'* 

"Yes,  Pa;  but  you  shouldn't  have  listened," 
rebuked  Jenny,  with  a  fine  colour. 

Pa  shook  his  shaggy  head.  He  felt  cunningly 
for  his  empty  tankard,  hoping  that  it  had  been 
refilled  by  his  benevolent  genius.  It  was  not  until 
the  full  measure  of  his  disappointment  had  been 
revealed  that  he  answered  her. 

"I  wasn't  listening,"  he  quavered.  "I  didn't 
hear  what  he  said.  .  .  .  Did  Emmy  go  out  with 
him?" 

"Yes,  Pa.  To  the  theatre.  Alf  brought  tickets. 
Tickets !  Tickets  for  seats.  .  .  .  Oh,  dear !  Why 
can't  you  understand!  Didn't  have  to  pay  at  the 
door.  ..." 

Pa  suddenly  understood. 

"Oh  ah!  "he  said.  "  Didn 't  have  to  pay.  .  .  ." 
There  was  a  pause.  "That's  like  Alf  Rylett," 
presently  added  Pa.  Jenny  sat  looking  at  him  in 
consternation  at  such  an  uncharitable  remark. 

"  It 's  not ! ' '  she  cried.  ' '  I  never  knew  you  were 
such  a  wicked  old  man!" 

Pa  gave  an  antediluvian  chuckle  that  sounded 
like  a  magical  and  appalling  rattle  from  the  inner 


THE  WISH  81 

recesses  of  his  person.  He  was  getting  brighter 
and  brighter,  as  the  stars  appear  to  do  when  the 
darkness  deepens. 

"See,"  he  proceeded.  "Did  Alf  say  there  was 
any  noos?"  He  admitted  an  uncertainty.  Fur- 
tively he  looked  at  her,  suspecting  all  the  time 
that  memory  had  betrayed  him ;  but  in  his  ancient 
way  continuing  to  trust  to  Magic. 

"Well,  you  didn't  seem  to  think  much  of  what 
he  did  bring.  But  I'll  tell  you  a  bit  of  news, 
Pa.  And  that  is,  that  you've  got  a  pair  of  the 
rummiest  daughters  I  ever  struck!" 

Pa  looked  out  from  beneath  his  bushy  grey  eye- 
brows, resembling  a  worn  and  dilapidated  per- 
version of  Whistler's  portrait  of  Carlyle.  His 
eyelids  seemed  to  work  as  he  brooded  upon  her 
announcement.  It  was  as  though,  together,  these 
two  explored  the  Blanchard  archives  for  confirma- 
tion of  Jenny's  sweeping  statement.  The  Blan- 
chards  of  several  generations  might  have  been 
imagined  as  flitting  across  a  fantastic  horizon, 
keening  for  their  withered  laurels,  thrown  into  the 
shades  by  these  more  brighter  eccentrics.  It  was, 
or  it  might  have  been,  a  fascinating  speculation. 
But  Pa  did  not  indulge  this  antique  vein  for  very 
long.  The  moment  and  its  concrete  images  be- 
guiled him  back  to  the  daughter  before  him  and 
the  daughter  who  was  engaged  in  an  unexpected 
emotional  treat.  He  said: 


82  NOCTURNE 

"I  know,"  and  gave  a  wide  grin  that  showed 
the  gaps  in  his  teeth  as  nothing  else  could  have 
done — not  even  the  profoundest  yawn.  Jenny 
was  stunned  by  this  evidence  of  brightness  in  her 
parent. 

"Well,  you're  a  caution!"  she  cried.  "And 
to  think  of  you  sitting  there  saying  it!  And  I 
reckon  they've  got  a  pretty  rummy  old  Pa — if 
the  truth  was  only  known." 

Pa's  grin,  if  possible,  stretched  wider.  Again 
that  terrible  chuckle,  which  suggested  a  derange- 
ment of  his  internal  parts,  or  the  running-down 
of  an  overwound  clock,  wheezed  across  the 
startled  air. 

"Maybe,"  Pa  said,  with  some  unpardonable 
complacency.  *  *  Maybe. ' ' 

"Bless  my  soul!"  exclaimed  Jenny.  She  could 
not  be  sure,  when  his  manner  returned  to  one  of 
vacancy,  and  when  the  kitchen  was  silent,  whether 
Pa  and  she  had  really  talked  thus,  or  whether  she 
had  dreamed  their  talk.  To  her  dying  day  she 
was  never  sure,  for  Pa  certainly  added  nothing 
to  the  conversation  thereafter.  Was  it  real?  Or 
had  her  too  excited  brain  played  her  a  trick? 
Jenny  pinched  herself.  It  was  like  a  fairy  tale, 
in  which  cats  talk  and  little  birds  humanly  sing, 
or  the  tiniest  of  fairies  appear  from  behind  clocks 
or  from  within  flower-pots.  She  looked  at  Pa 
with  fresh  awe.  There  was  no  knowing  where 


THE  WISH  83 

you  had  him!  He  had  the  interest,  for  her,  of 
one  returned  by  miracle  from  other  regions,  gifted 
with  preposterous  knowledges.  .  .  .  He  became 
at  this  instant  fabulous,  like  Eip  Van  Winkle,  or 
the  Sleeping  Beauty  ...  or  the  White  Cat.  .  .  . 
In  her  perplexity  Jenny  fell  once  more  into  a 
kind  of  dream,  an  argumentative  dream.  She 
went  back  over  the  earlier  rows,  re-living  them, 
exaggerating  unconsciously  the  noble  unselfish- 
ness of  her  own  acts  and  the  pointed  effectiveness 
of  her  speeches,  until  the  scenes  were  trans- 
formed. They  now  appeared  in  other  hues,  in 
other  fashionings.  This  is  what  volatile  minds 
are  able  to  do  with  all  recent  happenings  whatso- 
ever, re-casting  them  in  form  altogether  more 
exquisite  than  the  crude  realities.  The  chiaro- 
scuro of  their  experiences  is  thus  so  constantly 
changing  and  recomposing  that — whatever  the 
apparent  result  of  the  scene  in  fact — the  dreamer 
is  in  retrospect  always  victor,  in  the  heroic  lime- 
light. With  Jenny  this  was  a  mood,  not  a  pre- 
occupation; but  when  she  had  been  moved  or  ex- 
cited beyond  the  ordinary  she  often  did  tend  to 
put  matters  in  a  fresh  aspect,  more  palatable  to 
her  self-love,  and  more  picturesque  in  detail  than 
the  actual  happening.  That  is  one  of  the  advan- 
tages of  the  rapidly-working  brain,  that  its  power 
of  improvisation  is,  in  solitude,  very  constant  and 
reassuring.  It  is  as  though  such  a  grain,  upon 


84  NOCTURNE 

this  more  strictly  personal  side,  were  a  common- 
wealth of  little  cell-building  microbes.  The  chief 
microbe  comes,  like  the  engineer,  to  estimate  the 
damage  to  one's  amour  propre  and  to  devise 
means  of  repair.  He  then  summons  all  his  neces- 
sary workmen,  who  are  tiny  self-loves  and  ancient 
praises  and  habitual  complacencies  and  the  stair- 
case words  of  which  one  thinks  too  late  for  use 
in  the  scene  itself ;  and  with  their  help  he  restores 
that  proportion  without  which  the  human  being 
cannot  maintain  his  self-respect.  Jenny  was  like 
the  British  type  as  recorded  in  legend;  being 
beaten,  sne  never  admitted  it ;  but  even,  five  min- 
utes later,  through  the  adroitness  of  her  special 
engineer  and  his  handymen,  would  be  able  quite 
seriously  to  demonstrate  a  victory  to  herself. 

Defeat?  Never!  How  Alf  and  Emmy  shrank 
now  before  her  increasing  skill  in  argument.  How 
were  they  shattered!  How  inept  were  their 
feebleness!  How  splendid  Jenny  had  been,  in 
act,  in  motive,  in  speech,  in  performance! 

"Er,  yes!'*  Jenny  said,  beginning  to  ridicule 
her  own  highly  coloured  picture.  "Well,  it  was 
something  like  that!"  She  had  too  much  sense 
of  the  ridiculous  to  maintain  for  long  unques- 
tioned the  heroic  vein  as  natural  to  her  own  ac- 
tions. More  justly,  she  resumed  her  considera- 
tion of  the  scenes,  pondering  over  them  in  their 
nakedness  and  their  meanings,  trying  to  see  how 


THE  WISH  85 

all  these  stupid  little  feelings  had  burst  their  way 
from  overcharged  hearts,  and  how  each  word 
counted  as  part  of  the  mosaic  of  misunderstand- 
ing that  had  been  composed. 

"Oh,  blow!"  Jenny  impatiently  ejaculated, 
with  a  sinking  heart  at  the  thought  of  any  sequel. 
A  sequel  there  was  bound  to  be — however 
muffled.  It  did  not  rest  with  her.  There  were 
Emmy  and  Alf,  both  alike  burning  with  the  wish 
to  avenge  themselves — upon  her!  If  only  she 
could  disappear — just  drop  out  altogether,  like  a 
man  overboard  at  night  in  a  storm;  and  leave 
Emmy  and  Alf  to  settle  together  their  own 
trouble.  She  couldn't  drop  out;  nobody  could, 
without  dying,  though  they  might  often  wish  to  do 
so ;  and  even  then  their  bodies  were  the  only  things 
that  were  gone,  because  for  a  long  time  they  stub- 
bornly survived  in  memory.  No:  she  couldn't 
drop  out.  There  was  no  chance  of  it.  She  was 
caught  in  the  web  of  life ;  not  alone,  but  a  single 
small  thing  caught  in  the  general  mix-up  of  ac- 
tions and  inter-actions.  She  had  just  to  go  on  as 
she  was  doing,  waking  up  each  morning  after  the 
events  and  taking  her  old  place  in  the  world ;  and 
in  this  instance  she  would  have,  somehow,  to 
smooth  matters  over  when  the  excitements  and 
agitations  of  the  evening  were  past.  It  would 
be  terribly  difficult.  She  could  not  yet  see  a  clear 
course.  If  only  Emmy  didn't  live  in  the  same 


86  NOCTURNE 

house!  If  only,  by  throwing  Alf  over  as  far  as 
concerned  herself,  she  could  at  the  same  time 
throw  him  into  Emmy's  waiting  arms.  Why 
couldn't  everybody  be  sensible?  If  only  they 
could  all  be  sensible  for  half-an-hour  everything 
could  be  arranged  and  happiness  could  be  made 
real  for  each  of  them.  No:  misunderstandings 
were  bound  to  come,  angers  and  jealousies,  con- 
flicting desires,  stupid  suspicions.  .  .  .  Jenny 
fidgeted  in  her  chair  and  eyed  Pa  with  a  sort  of 
vicarious  hostility.  Why,  even  that  old  man  was 
a  complication!  Nay,  he  was  the  worst  thing  of 
all!  But  for  him,  she  could  drop  out!  There 
was  no  getting  away  from  him !  He  was  as  much 
permanently  there  as  the  chair  upon  which  he 
was  drowsing.  She  saw  him  as  an  incubus.  And 
then  Emmy  being  so  fussy !  Standing  on  her  dig- 
nity when  she'd  give  her  soul  for  happiness! 
And  then  Alf  being  so  .  .  .  What  was  Alf?  Well, 
Alf  was  stupid.  That  was  the  word  for  Alf.  He 
was  stupid.  As  stupid  as  any  stupid  member  of 
his  immeasurably  stupid  sex  could  be! 

"Great  booby!"  muttered  Jenny.  Why,  look 
at  the  way  he  had  behaved  when  Emmy  had  come 
into  the  room.  It  wasn't  honesty,  mind  you;  be- 
cause he  could  tell  any  old  lie  when  he  wanted 
to.  It  was  just  funk.  He  hadn't  known  where 
to  look,  or  what  to  say.  Too  slow,  he  was,  to 
think  of  anything.  What  could  you  do  with  a 


THE  WISH  87 

man  like  that?  Oh,  what  stupids  men  were !  She 
expected  that  Alf  would  feel  very  fine  and  noble 
as  he  walked  old  Em  along  to  the  theatre — and 
afterwards,  when  the  evening  was  over  and  he 
had  gone  off  in  a  cloud  of  glory.  He  would  think 
it  all  over  and  come  solemnly  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  reason  for  his  mumbling  stupidity,  his 
toeing  and  heeling,  and  all  that  idiotic  speechless- 
ness  that  set  Emmy  on  her  hind  legs,  was  sheer 
love  of  the  truth.  He  couldn't  tell  a  lie — to  a 
woman.  That  would  be  it.  He  would  pretend  that 
Jenny  had  chivvied  him  into  taking  Em,  that  he 
was  too  noble  to  refuse  to  take  Em,  or  to  let 
Em  really  see  point-blank  that  he  didn't  want  to 
take  her;  but  when  it  came  to  the  pinch  he  hadn't 
been  able  to  screw  himself  into  the  truly  noble  at- 
titude needed  for  such  an  act  of  self-sacrifice.  He 
had  been  speechless  when  a  prompt  lie,  added  to 
the  promptitude  and  exactitude  of  Jenny's  lie, 
would  have  saved  the  situation.  Not  Alf! 

"I  cannot  tell  a  lie,"  sneered  Jenny.  "To  a 
woman.  George  Washington.  I  don't  think!" 

Yes;  but  then,  said  her  secret  complacency, 
preening  itself,  and  suggesting  that  possibly  a 
moment  or  two  of  satisfied  pity  might  be  at  this 
point  in  place,  he'd  really  wanted  to  take  Jenny. 
He  had  taken  the  tickets  because  he  had  wanted 
to  be  in  Jenny's  company  for  the  evening.  Not 
Emmy's.  There  was  all  the  difference.  If  you 


88  NOCTURNE 

wanted  a  cream  bun  and  got  fobbed  off  with  a 
scone !  There  was  something  in  that.  Jenny  was 
rather  flattered  by  her  happy  figure.  She  even 
excitedly  giggled  at  the  comparison  of  Emmy  with 
a  scone.  Jenny  did  not  like  scones.  She  thought 
them  stodgy.  She  had  also  that  astounding  fem- 
inine love  of  cream  buns  which  no  true  man 
could  ever  acknowledge  or  understand.  So  Emmy 
became  a  scone,  with  not  too  many  currents  in 
it.  Jenny's  fluent  fancy  was  inclined  to  dwell 
upon  this  notion.  She  a  little  lost  sight  of  Alf 's 
grievance  in  her  pleasure  at  the  figures  she  had 
drawn.  Her  mind  was  recalled  with  a  jerk.  Now : 
what  was  it?  Alf  had  wanted  to  take  her — Jenny. 
Bight!  He  had  taken  Emmy.  Eight!  Because 
he  had  taken  Emmy,  he  had  a  grievance.  Right ! 
But  against  whom?  Against  Emmy?  Certainly 
not.  Against  himself?  By  no  means.  Against 
Jenny?  A  horribly  exulting  and  yet  nervously 
penitent  little  giggle  shook  Jenny  at  her  inability 
to  answer  this  point  as  she  had  answered  the 
others.  For  Alf  had  a  grievance  against  Jenny, 
and  she  knew  it.  No  amount  of  ingenious  thought 
could  hoodwink  her  sense  of  honesty  for  more 
than  a  debater's  five  minutes.  No  Alf  had  a 
grievance.  Jenny  could  not,  in  strict  privacy, 
deny  the  fact.  She  took  refuge  in  a  shameless 
piece  of  bluster. 
"Well,  after  all !"  she  cried,  "he  had  the  tickets 


THE  WISH  89 

given  to  him.    It's  not  as  though  they  cost  him 
anything !    Sc  what 's  all  the  row  about  I ' ' 

*  * 

11 

Thereafter  she  began  to  think  of  Alf .  He  had 
taken  her  out  several  times — not  as  many  times 
as  Emmy  imagined,  because  Emmy  had  thought 
about  these  excursions  a  great  deal  and  not  only 
magnified  but  multiplied  them.  Nevertheless,  Alt 
had  taken  Jenny  out  several  times.  To  a  music 
hall  once  or  twice;  to  the  pictures,  where  they 
had  sat  and  thrilled  in  cushioned  darkness  while 
acrobatic  humans  and  grey-faced  tragic  creatures 
jerked  and  darted  at  top  speed  in  and  out  of  the 
most  amazingly  telescoped  accidents  and  difficul- 
ties. And  Alf  had  paid  more  than  once,  for  all 
Pa  said.  It  is  true  that  Jenny  had  paid  on  her 
birthday  for  both  of  them ;  and  that  she  had  occa- 
sionally paid  for  herself  upon  an  impulse  of  sheer 
independence.  But  there  had  been  other  times 
when  Alf  had  really  paid  for  both  of  them.  He 
had  been  very  decent  about  it.  He  had  not  tried 
any  nonsense,  because  he  was  not  a  flirtatious  fel- 
low. Well,  it  had  been  very  nice ;  and  now  it  was 
all  spoilt.  It  was  spoilt  because  of  Emmy.  Emmy 
had  spoilt  it  by  wanting  Alf  for  herself.  Ugh! 
thought  Jenny.  Em  had  always  been  a  jealous 
cat:  if  she  had  just  sedn  Alf  somewhere  she 
wouldn  't  have  wanted  him.  That  was  it  1  Em  saw 


90  NOCTURNE 

that  Alf  preferred  Jenny;  she  saw  that  Jenny 
went  out  with  him.  And  because  she  always 
wanted  to  do  what  Jenny  did,  and  always  wanted 
what  Jenny  had  got,  Em  wanted  to  be  taken  out 
by  Alf.  Jenny,  with  the  cruel  unerringness  of  an 
exasperated  woman,  was  piercing  to  Emmy's 
heart  with  fierce  lambent  flashes  of  insight.  And 
if  Alf  had  taken  Em  once  or  twice,  and  Jenny 
once  or  twice,  not  wanting  either  one  or  the  other, 
or  not  wanting  one  of  them  more  than  the  other, 
Em  would  have  been  satisfied.  It  would  have 
gone  no  further.  It  would  still  have  been  sensible, 
without  nonsense.  But  it  wouldn't  do  for  Em. 
So  long  as  Jenny  was  going  out  Emmy  stayed  at 
home.  She  had  said  to  herself:  "Why  should 
Jenny  go,  and  not  me  .  .  .  having  all  this  pleas- 
ure?" That  had  been  the  first  stage — Jenny 
worked  it  all  out.  First  of  all,  it  had  been  envy 
of  Jenny's  going  out.  Then  had  come  stage  num- 
ber two:  "Why  should  Alf  Rylett  always  take 
Jenny,  and  not  me?"  That  had  been  the  first 
stage  of  jealousy  of  Alf.  And  the  next  time  Alf 
took  Jenny,  Em  had  stayed  at  home,  and  thought 
herself  sick  about  it,  supposing  that  Alf  and 
Jenny  were  happy  and  that  she  was  unhappy,  sup- 
posing they  had  all  the  fun,  envying  them  the 
fun,  hating  them  for  having  what  she  had  not  got, 
hating  Jenny  for  monopolising  Alf,  hating  Alf 
had  monopolising  Jenny;  then,  as  she  was  a 


THE  WISH  91 

woman,  hating  Jenny  for  being  a  more  pleasing 
woman  than  herself,  and  having  her  wounded 
jealousy  moved  into  a  strong  craving  for  Alf, 
driven  deeper  and  deeper  into  her  heart  by  long- 
continued  thought  and  frustrated  desire.  And  so 
she  had  come  to  look  upon  herself  as  one  de- 
frauded by  Jenny  of  pleasure — of  happiness — of 
love—of  Alf  Eylett. 

"And  she  calls  it  love !"  thought  Jenny  bitterly. 
"If  that's  love,  I've  got  no  use  for  it.  Love's 
giving,  not  getting.  I  know  that  much.  Love's 
giving  yourself;  wanting  to  give  all  you've  got. 
It's  got  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  envy,  or  hating 
people,  or  being  jealous.  .  .  ."  Then  a  swift 
feeling  of  pity  darted  through  her,  changing  her 
thoughts,  changing  every  shade  of  the  portrait 
of  Emmy  which  she  had  been  etching  with  her 
quick  corrosive  strokes  of  insight.  "Poor  old 
Em!"  she  murmured.  "She's  had  a  rotten  time. 
I  know  she  has.  Let  her  have  Alf  if  she  wants. 
I  don't  want  him.  I  don't  want  anybody  .  .  . 
except  .  .  . "  She  closed  her  eyes  in  the  most 
fleeting  vision.  "  Nobody  except  just  Keith.  ..." 

Slowly  Jenny  raised  her  hand  and  pressed  the 
back  of  her  wrist  to  her  lips,  not  kissing  the  wrist, 
but  holding  it  against  her  lips  so  that  they  were 
forced  hard  back  upon  her  teeth.  She  drew, 
presently,  a  deep  breath,  releasing  her  arm  again 
and  clasping  her  hands  over  her  knees  as  she  bent 


92  NOCTURNE 

lower,  staring  at  the  glowing  heart  of  the  fire. 
Her  lips  were  closely,  seriously,  set  now ;  her  eyes 
sorrowful.  Alf  and  Emmy  had  receded  from  her 
attention  as  if  they  had  been  fantastic  shadows. 
Pa,  sitting  holding  his  exhausted  hubble-bubble, 
was  as  though  he  had  no  existence  at  all.  Jenny 
was  lost  in  memory  and  the  painful  aspirations 
of  her  own  heart. 

iii 

How  the  moments  passed  during  her  reverie 
she  did  not  know.  For  her  it  seemed  that  time 
stood  still  while  she  recalled  days  that  were  beau- 
tified by  distance,  and  imagined  days  that  should 
be  still  to  come,  made  to  compensate  for  that 
long  interval  of  dullness  that  pressed  her  each 
morning  into  acquiescence.  She  bent  nearer  to 
the  fire,  smiling  to  herself.  The  fire  showing 
under  the  little  door  of  the  kitchener  was  a  bright 
red  glowing  ash,  the  redness  that  came  into  her 
imagination  when  the  words  "fire"  or  "heat" 
were  used — the  red  heart,  burning  and  consuming 
.  itself  in  its  passionate  immolation.  She  loved 
the  fire.  It  was  to  her  the  symbol  of  rapturous 
surrender,  that  feminine  ideal  that  lay  still  deeper 
than  her  pride,  locked  in  the  most  secret  chamber 
of  her  nature. 

And  then,  as  the  seconds  ticked  away,  Jenny 
awoke  from  her  dream  and  saw  that  the  clock 


THE  WISH  93 

upon  the  mantelpiece  said  half -past  eight.  Half- 
past  eight  was  what,  in  the  Blanchard  home,  was 
called  "time,"  When  Pa  was  recalcitrant  Jenny 
occasionally  shouted  very  loud,  with  what  might 
have  appeared  to  some  people  an  undesirable 
knowledge  of  customs,  "Act  of  Parliament, 
gentlemen,  please" — which  is  a  phrase  sometimes 
used  in  clearing  a  public-house.  To-night  there 
was  no  need  for  her  to  do  that.  She  had  only  to 
look  at  Pa,  to  take  from  his  hand  the  almost 
empty  pipe,  to  knock  out  the  ashes,  and  to  say: 
' '  Time,  Pa ! "  Obediently  Pa  held  out  his  right 
hand  and  clutched  in  the  other  his  sturdy  walking- 
stick.  Together  they  tottered  into  the  bedroom, 
stood  a  moment  while  Jenny  lighted  the  peep  of 
gas  which  was  Pa's  guardian  angel  during  the 
night,  and  then  made  their  way  to  the  bed.  Pa 
sat  upon  the  bed,  like  a  child.  Jenny  took  off 
Pa's  collar  and  tie,  and  his  coat  and  waistcoat; 
she  took  off  his  boots  and  his  socks ;  she  laid  beside 
him  the  extraordinary  faded  scarlet  nightgown  in 
which  Pa  slept  away  the  darkness.  Then  she  left 
him  to  struggle  out  of  his  clothes  as  well  as  he 
could,  which  Pa  did  with  a  skill  worthy  of  his 
best  days.  The  cunning  which  replaces  compe- 
tence had  shown  him  how  the  braces  may  be  made 
to  do  their  own  work,  how  the  shirt  may  with 
one  hand  be  so  manipulated  as  to  be  drawn  swiftly 
over  the  head.  .  .  .  Pa  was  adept  at  undress- 


94  NOCTURNE 

ing.  He  was  in  bed  within  five  minutes,  after  a 
panting,  exhausted  interval  during  which  he  sot 
in  a  kind  of  trance,  and  was  then  proudly  as 
usual  knocking  upon  the  floor  with  his  walking- 
stick  for  Jenny  to  come  and  tuck  him  in  for  the 
night. 

Jenny  came,  gave  him  a  big  kiss,  and  went  back 
to  the  kitchen,  where  she  resumed  work  upon  her 
hat.    It  had  lost  its  interest  for  her.    She  stitched 
quickly  and  roughly,   not  as   one  interested  in 
needlework  or  careful  for  its  own  sake  of  the 
regularity  of  the  stitch.    Ordinarily  she  was  ac- 
curate: to-night  her  attention  was  elsewhere.    It 
had  come  back  to  the  rows,  because  there  is  noth-  \ 
ing  either  good  or  bad  but  thinking  makes  it  ever  I 
so  much  more  important  than  it  really  is.    Lone-  / 
liness  with  happy  thoughts  is  perhaps  an  ideal/ 
state ;  but  no  torment  could  be  greater  than  loney 
liness    with    thoughts    that    wound.       Jenny's 
thoughts  wounded  her.     The  mood  of  compla- 
cency was  gone :  that  of  shame  and  discontent  was 
upon  her.    Distress  was  uppermost  in  her  mind- 
not  the  petulant  wriggling  of  a  spoilt  child,  but 
the  sober  consciousness  of  pain  in  herself  and  in 
others.     In  vain  did  Jenny  give  little  gasps  of 
annoyance,  intended  by  her  humour  to  disperse 
the  clouds.    The  gasps  and  exclamations  were  un- 
availing.    She  was  angry,  chagrined,  miserable. 
...    At  last  she  could  bear  the  tension  no  longer, 


THE  WISH  95 

but  threw  down  her  work,  rose,  and  walked  im- 
patiently about  the  kitchen. 

"Oh,  do  shut  up!"  she  cried  to  her  insistent 
thoughts.  "Enough  to  drive  anybody  off  their 
nut.  And  they're  not  worth  it,  either  of  them. 
Em's  as  stupid  as  she  can  be,  thinking  about  her- 
self. .  .  .  And  as  for  Alf — anybody 'd  think  I'd 
tricked  him.  I  haven't.  I've  gone  out  with  him; 
but  what's  that?  Lots  of  girls  go  out  with  fel- 
lows for  months,  and  nobody  expects  them  to 
marry.  The  girls  may  want  it;  but  the  fellows 
don't.  They  don't  want  to  get  settled  down.  And 
I  don't  blame  them.  Why  is  Alf  different?  I 
suppose  it's  me  that's  different.  I'm  not  like 
other  girls.  .  .  ."  That  notion  cheered  her. 
"No:  I'm  not  like  other  girls.  I  want  my  bit  of 
fun.  I've  never  had  any.  And  just  because  I 
don't  want  to  settle  down  and  have  a  lot  of  kids 
that  mess  the  place  to  bits,  of  course  I  get  hold 
of  Alf!  It's  too  bad!  Why  can't  he  choose  the 
right  sort  of  girl?  Why  oan't  he  choose  old  Em? 
She 's  the  sort  that  does  want  to  get  settled.  She 
knows  she'll  have  to  buck  up  about  it,  too.  She 
said  I  should  get  left.  That's  what  she's  afraid 
of,  herself ;  only  she 's  afraid  of  getting  left  on  the 
shelf.  ...  I  wonder  why  it  is  the  marrying  men 
don't  get  hold  of  the  marrying  girls!  They  do, 
sometimeaTiHiBppOBer .  ~i  T71  Jenny  shrugged 
restlessly  and  stood  looking  at  nothing.  "Oh,  it's 


96  NOCTURNE 

sickening!  You  can't  do  anything  you  like  in  this 
world.  Nothing  at  all!  You've  always  got  to 
do  what  you  don't  like.  They  say  it's  good  for 
you.  It's  your  'duty.'  Who  to?  And  who  are 
'they,'  to  say  such  a  thing?  What  are  they  after? 
Just  to  keep  people  like  me  in  their  place — do 
as  you're  told.  Well,  I'm  not  going  to  do  as  I'm 
told.  They  can  lump  it!  That's  what  they  can 
do.  What  does  it  matter — what  happens  to  me,? 
I'm  me,  aren't  I?  Got  a  right  to  live,  haven't  I? 
Why  should  I  be  somebody's  servant  all  my  life? 
I  won't!  If  Alf  doesn't  want  to  marry  Emmy, 
he  can  go  and  whistle  somewhere  else.  There's 
plenty  of  girls  who'd  jump  at  him.  But  just 
because  I  don't,  he'll  worry  me  to  death.  If  I 
was  to  be  all  over  him — see  Alf  sheer  off!  He'd 
think  there  was  something  funny  about  me.  Well, 
there  is!  I'm  Jenny  Blanchard;  and  I'm  going 
to  keep  Jenny  Blanchard.  If  I've  got  no  right 
to  live,  then  nobody's  got  any  right  to  keep  me 
from  living.  If  there's  no  rights,  other  people 
haven't  got  any  more  than  I  have.  They  can't 
make  me  do  anything — by  any  right  they've  got. 
People — managing  people — think  that  because 
there  isn't  a  corner  of  the  earth  they  haven't  col- 
lared they  can  tell  you  what  you've  got  to  do. 
Give  you  a  ticket  and  a  number,  get  up  at  six,  eat 
so  much  a  day,  have  six  children,  do  what  you're 
told.  That  may  do  for  some  people;  but  it's 


THE  WISH  97 

slavery.  And  I'm  not  going  to  do  it.  See  I"  She 
began  to  shout  in  her  excited  indignation.  ' '  See ! ' ' 
she  cried  again.  "Just  because  I'm  poor,  I'm  to 
do  what  I'm  told.  They  seem  to  think  that  be- 
cause they  like  to  do  what  they're  told,  everybody 
ought  to  be  the  same.  They're  afraid.  They're 
afraid  of  themselves — afraid  of  being  left  alone 
in  the  dark.  They  think  everybody  ought  to  be 
afraid — in  case  anybody  should  find  out  that 
they're  cowards!  But  I'm  not  afraid,  and  I'm 
not  going  to  do  what  I'm  told.  ...  I  won't!" 

In  a  frenzy  she  walked  about  the  room,  her  eyes 
glittering,  her  face  flushed  with  tumultuous  anger. 
This  was  her  defiance  to  life.  She  had  been  made 
into  a  rebel  through  long  years  in  which  she  had 
unconsciously  measured  herself  with  others.  Be- 
cause she  was  a  human  beyig,  Jenny  thought  she 
had  a  right  to  govern  her  own  actions.  With  a 
whole  priesthood  against  her,  Jenny  was  a  rebel 
against  the  world  as  it  appeared  to  her — a  crush- 
ing, numerically  overwhelming  pressure  that 
would  rob  her  of  her  one  spiritual  reality — the 
sense  of  personal  freedom. 

"Oh,  I  can't  stand  it!"  she  said  bitterly.  "I 
shall  go  mad !  And  Em  taking  it  all  in,  and  ready 
to  have  Alf 's  foot  on  her  neck  for  life.  And  Alf 
ready  to  have  Em  chained  to  his  foot  for  life. 
The  fools!  Why,  I  wouldn't  .  .  .  not  even  to 
Keith.  .  .  .  No,  I  wouldn't.  .  .  .  Fancy  being 


98  NOCTURNE 

boxed  up  and  pretending  I  liked  it — just  because 
other  people  say  they  like  it.  Do  as  you're  told. 
Do  like  other  people.  All  be  the  same — a  sticky 
mass  of  silly  fools  doing  as  they're  told!  All  for 
a  bit  of  bread,  because  somebody's  bagged  the 
flour  for  ever!  And  what's  the  good  of  it?  If  it 
was  any  good —  but  it's  no  good  at  all !  And  they 
go  on  doing  it  because  they're  cowards !  Cowards, 
that's  what  they  all  are.  Well,  I'm  not  like 
that!" 

Exhausted,  Jenny  sat  down  again;  but  she 
could  not  keep  still.  Her  feet  would  not  remain 
quietly  in  the  place  she,  as  the  governing  intel- 
ligence, commanded.  They  too  were  rebels,  nerv- 
ous rebels,  controlled  by  forces  still  stronger  than 
the  governing  intelligence.  She  felt  trapped,  im- 
potent, as  though  her  hands  were  tied ;  as  though 
only  her  whirling  thoughts  were  unfettered. 
Again  she  took  up  the  hat,  but  her  hands  so 
trembled  that  she  could  not  hold  the  needle  steady. 
It  made  fierce  jabs  into  the  hat.  Stormily  un- 
happy, she  once  more  threw  the  work  down.  Her 
lips  trembled.  She  burst  into  bitter  tears, 
sobbing  as  though  her  heart  were  breaking.  Her 
whole  body  was  shaken  with  the  deep  and  pas- 
sionate sobs  that  echoed  her  despair. 

iv 
Presently,  when  she  grew  calmer,  Jenny  wiped 


THE  WISH  99 

her  eyes,  her  face  quite  pale  and  her  hands  still 
convulsively  trembling.  She  was  worn  out  by 
the  stress  of  the  evening,  by  the  vehemence  of  her 
rebellious  feelings.  When  she  again  spoke  to  her- 
self it  was  in  a  shamed,  giggling  way  that  nobody 
but  Emmy  had  heard  from  her  since  the  days  of 
childhood.  She  gave  a  long  sigh,  looking  through 
the  blur  at  that  clear  glow  from  beneath  the  iron 
door  of  the  kitchen  grate.  Miserably  she  refused 
to  think  again.  She  was  half  sick  of  thoughts 
that  tore  at  her  nerves  and  lacerated  her  heart. 
To  herself  Jenny  felt  that  it  was  no  good — crying 
was  no  good,  thinking  was  no  good,  loving  and 
sympathising  and  giving  kindness — all  these 
things  were  in  this  mood  as  useless  as  one  an- 
other. There  was  nothing  in  life  but  the  end- 
less sacrifice  of  human  spirit. 

"Oh!"  she  groaned  passionately.  "If  only 
something  would  happen.  I  don't  care  what! 
But  something  .  .  .  something  new  .  .  .  excit- 
ing. Something  with  a  bite  in  it  I" 

She  stared  at  the  kicking  clock,  which  every 
now  and  again  seemed  to  have  a  spasm  of  distaste 
for  its  steady  record  of  the  fleeting  seconds. 
"Wound  np  to  go  all  day!"  she  thought,  com- 
paring the  clock  with  herself  in  an  angry  impa- 
tience. 

And  then,  as  if  it  came  in  answer  to  her  poign- 
ant wish  for  some  untoward  happening,  there 


ioo  NOCTURNE 

was  a  quick  double  knock  at  the  front  door  of  the 
Blanchard's  dwelling,  and  a  sharp  whirring  ring 
at  the  push-bell  below  the  knocker.  The  sounds 
seeined  to  go  violently  through  and  through  the 
little  house  in  rapid  waves  of  vibrant  noise. 


PART  TWO 
NIGHT 


CHAPTER  V:  THE  ADVENTURE 

i 

SO  unexpected  was  this  interruption  of  her 
loneliness  that  Jenny  was  for  an  instant 
stupefied.  She  took  one  step,  and  then  paused, 
dread  firmly  in  her  mind,  paralysing  her.  What 
could  it  be  ?  She  could  not  have  been  more  fright- 
ened if  the  sound  had  been  the  turning  of  a  key 
in  the  lock.  Were  they  back  already?  Had  her 
hope  been  spoiled  by  some  accident?  Surely  not. 
It  was  twenty  minutes  to  nine.  They  were  safe 
in  the  theatre  by  now.  Oh,  she  was  afraid !  She  / 
was  alone  in  the  house — worse  than  alone !  Jenny 
cowered.  She  felt  she  could  not  answer  the  sum- 
mons. Tick-tick-tick  said  the  clock,  striking 
across  the  silences.  Again  Jenny  made  a  step 
forward.  Then,  terrifying  her,  the  noise  began 
once  more — the  thunderous  knock,  the  ping-ping- 
ping-whir  of  the  bell.  .  .  . 

Wrenching  her  mind  away  from  apprehensive- 
ness  she  moved  quickly  to  the  kitchen  door  and 
into  the  dimly-lighted  dowdy  passage-way.  Some- 
where beyond  the  gas  flicker  and  the  hat-stand 
lay — what?  With  all  her  determination  she 
pushed  forward,  almost  running  to  the  door. 

103 


104  NOCTURNE 

Her  hand  hovered  over  the  little  knob  of  the  lock : 
only  horror  of  a  renewal  of  that  dreadful  sound 
prompted  her  to  open  the  door  quickly.  She 
peered  into .  the  darkness,  faintly  silhouetted 
against  the  wavering  light  of  the  gas.  A  man 
stood  there. 

" Evening,  miss,"  said  the  man.  "Miss  Jenny 
Blanchard?" 

She  could  see  there  something  white.  He  was 
holding  it  out  to  her.  A  letter  1 

"For  me,"  she  asked,  her  voice  still  unsteady. 
She  took  the  letter,  a  large  square  envelope.  Me- 
chanically she  thanked  the  man,  puzzling  at  the 
letter.  From  whom  could  a  letter  be  brought  to 
her? 

* '  There 's  an  answer, ' '  she  heard.  It  came  from 
ever  so  far  away,  in  the  dim  distance  beyond  her 
vague  wonderings.  Jenny  was  lost,  submerged 
in  the  sensations  through  which  she  had  passed 
during  the  evening.  She  was  quite  unlike  herself, 
timid  and  fearful,  a  frightened  girl  alone  in  an 
unhappy  house. 

"Wait  a  bit!"  she  said.  "Will  you  wait 
there  t" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  man,  startlingly  enough. 
"I've  got  the  car  here." 

The  car!  What  did  it  mean?  She  caught  now, 
as  her  eyes  were  more  used  to  the  darkness,  the 
sheen  of  light  upon  a  peaked  cap  such  as  would 


THE  ADVENTURE  105 

be  worn  by  a  chauffeur.  It  filled  her  mind  that 
this  man  was  in  uniform.  But  if  so,  why?  From 
whom  should  the  letter  come  I  He  had  said  ' '  Miss 
Jenny  Blanchard." 

"You  did  say  it  was  for  me?  I'll  take  it  in- 
side. .  .  . "  She  left  the  door  unfastened,  but 
the  man  pulled  it  right  to,  so  that  the  catch  clicked. 
Then  Jenny  held  the  letter  up  under  the  flame 
of  the  passage  gas.  She  read  there  by  this  meagre 
light  her  own  name,  the  address,  written  in  a 
large  hand,  very  bold,  with  a  sharp,  sweeping 
stroke  under  all,  such  as  a  man  of  impetuous 
strength  might  make.  There  was  a  blue  seal 
fastening  the  flap — a  great  pool  of  solid  wax. 
Trembling  so  that  she  was  hardly  able  to  tear 
the  envelope,  Jenny  returned  to  the  kitchen,  again 
scanning  the  address,  the  writing,  the  blue  seal 
with  its  Minerva  head.  Still,  in  her  perplexity,  it 
seemed  as  though  her  task  was  first  to  guess  the 
identity  of  the  sender.  Who  could  have  written 
to  her?  It  was  unheard  of,  a  think  for  wondering 
jest,  if  only  her  lips  had  been  steady  and  her 
heart  beating  with  normal  pulsation.  With  a 
shrug,  she  turned  back  from  the  seal  to  the  ad- 
dress. She  felt  that  some  curious  mistake  had 
been  made,  that  the  letter  was  not  for  her  at  all, 
but  for  some  other  Jenny  Blanchard,  of  whom  she 
had  never  until  now  heard.  Then,  casting  such  a 
fantastic  thought  aside  with  another  impatient 


io6  NOCTURNE 

effort,  she  tore  the  envelope,  past  the  seal,  in  a 
ragged  dash.  Her  first  glance  was  at  the  signa- 
ture. " Yours  always,  KEITH.'* 

Keith!  Jenny  gave  a  sob  and  moved  swiftly 
to  the  light.  Her  eyes  were  quite  blurred  with 
shining  mist.  She  could  not  read  the  words. 
Keith!  She  could  only  murmur  his  name,  hold- 
ing the  letter  close  against  her. 

ii 

"My  DEAR  JENNY,"  said  the  letter.  "Do  you 
remember?  I  said  I  should  write  to  you  when  I 
got  back.  Well,  here  I  am.  I  can't  come  to  you 
myself.  I'm  tied  here  by  the  leg,  and  mustn't 
leave  for  a  moment.  But  you  said  you'd  come 
to  me.  Will  you?  Do!  If  you  can  come,  you'll 
be  a  most  awful  dear,  and  I  shall  be  out  of  my 
wits  with  joy.  Not  really  out  of  my  wits.  Do 
come,  there's  a  dear  good  girl.  It's  my  only 
chance,  as  I'm  off  again  in  the  morning.  The  man 
who  brings  this  note  will  bring  you  safely  to  me 
in  the  car,  and  will  bring  you  quite  safely  home 
again.  Do  come!  I'm  longing  to  see  you.  I 
trust  you  to  come.  I  will  explain  everything 
when  we  meet.  Yours  always,  KEITH." 

A  long  sigh  broke  from  Jenny's  lips  as  she  fin- 
ished reading.  She  was  transfigured.  Gone  was 
the  defiant  look,  gone  were  the  sharpnesses  that 


THE  ADVENTURE  107 

earlier  had  appeared  upon  her  face.    A  soft  col- 
our flooded  her  cheeks ;  her  eyes  shone.    Come  to 
him !    She  would  go  to  the  end  of  the  world.  . 
Keith!     She  said  it  aloud,  in  a  voice  that  was 
rich  with  her  deep  feeling,  magically  transformed. 

"Come  to  you,  my  dear!"  said  Jenny.  "As  if 
you  need  ask!" 

Then  she  remembered  that  Emmy  was  out,  that 
she  was  left  at  home  to  look  after  her  father,  that 
to  desert  him  would  be  a  breach  of  trust.  Quickly 
her  face  paled,  and  her  eyes  became  horror-laden. 
She  was  shaken  by  the  conflict  of  love  and  love, 
love  that  was  pity  and  love  that  was  the  over- 
whelming call  of  her  nature.  The  letter  fluttered 
from  her  fingers,  swooping  like  a  wounded  bird 
to  the  ground,  and  lay  unheeded  at  her  feet. 

iii 

"What  shall  I  do!"  Nobody  to  turn  to;  no 
help  from  any  hand  To  stay  was  to  give  up  the 
chance  of  happiness.  To  go — oh,  she  couldn't  go ! 
If  Keith  was  tied,  so  was  Jenny.  Half  demented, 
she  left  the  letter  where  it  had  fallen,  a  white 
square  upon  the  shabby  rug.  In  a  frenzy  she 
wrung  her  hands.  What  could  she  do?  It  was  a 
cry  of  despair  that  broke  from  her  heart.  She 
couldn't  go,  and  Keith  was  waiting.  That  it 
should  have  happened  upon  this  evening  of  all 
others !  It  was  bitter !  To  send  back  a  message, 


io8  NOCTURNE 

even  though  it  be  written  with  all  her  love,  which 
still  she  must  not  express  to  Keith  in  case  he 
should  think  her  lightly  won,  would  be  to  lose 
him  for  ever.  He  would  never  stand  it.  She  saw 
his  quick  irritation,  the  imperious  glance.  .  .  . 
He  was  a  king  among  men.  She  must  go !  What- 
ever the  failure  in  trust,  whatever  the  conse- 
quences, she  must  go.  She  couldn't  go!  What- 
ever the  loss  to  herself,  her  place  was  here. 
Emmy  would  not  have  gone  to  the  theatre  if  she 
had  not  known  that  Jenny  would  stay  loyally 
there.  It  was  too  hard  I  The  months,  the  long 
months  during  which  Keith  had  not  written,  were 
upon  her  mind  like  a  weariness.  She  had  had  no 
word  from  him,  and  the  little  photograph  that  he 
had  laughingly  offered  had  been  her  only  consola- 
tion. Yes,  well,  why  hadn't  he  written f  Quickly 
her  love  urged  his  excuse.  She  might  accuse  him 
of  having  forgotten  her,  but  to  herself  she  ex- 
plained and  pardoned  all.  That  was  not  for  this 
moment.  Keith  was  not  in  fault.  It  was  this 
dreadful  difficulty  of  occasion,  binding  her  here 
when  her  heart  was  with  him.  To  sit  moping 
here  by  the  fire  when  Keith  called  to  her !  Duty 
—the  word  was  a  mockery.  "They"  would  say 
she  ought  to  stay.  Hidden  voices  throbbed  the 
same  message  into  her  consciousness.  But  every 
eager  impulse,  winged  with  love,  bade  her  go. 
To  whom  was  her  heart  given?  To  PaT  Pity 


THE  ADVENTURE  109 

.  .  .  pity.  .  .  .  She  pitied  him,  helpless  at  home. 
If  anything  happened  to  him?  Nothing  would 
happen.  What  could  happen?  Supposing  she 
had  gone  to  the  chandler's  shop:  in  those  few 
minutes  all  might  happen  that  could  happen  in  all 
the  hours  she  was  away.  Yet  Emmy  often  ran 
out,  leaving  Pa  alone.  He  was  in  bed,  asleep; 
he  would  not  awaken,  and  would  continue  to  lie 
there  at  rest  until  morning.  Supposing  she  had 
gone  to  bed — she  would  still  be  in  the  house; 
but  in  no  position  to  look  after  Pa»  He  might 
die  any  night  while  they  slept.  It  was  only  the 
idea  of  leaving  him,  the  superstitious  idea  that 
just  because  she  was  not  there  something  would 
happen.  Suppose  she  didn't  go;  but  sat  in  the 
kitchen  for  two  hours  and  then  went  to  bed. 
Would  she  ever  forgive  herself  for  letting  slip  the 
chance  of  happiness  that  had  come  direct  from 
the  clouds!  Never!  But  if  she  went,  and 
something  did  happen,  would  she  ever  in  that 
event  know  self -content  again  in  all  the  days  of 
her  life?  Roughly  she  shouldered  away  her  con- 
science, those  throbbing  urgencies  that  told  her 
to  stay.  She  was  to  give  up  everything  for  a  fear? 
She  was  to  let  Keith  go  for  ever?  Jenny  wrung 
her  hands,  drawing  sobbing  breaths  in  her  dis- 
tress. 

Something  made  her  pick  the  letter  swiftly  up 
and  read  it  through  a  second  time.    So  wild  was 


no  NOCTURNE 

the  desire  to  go  that  she  began  to  whimper, 
kissing  the  letter  again  and  again,  holding  it 
softly  to  her  cold  cheek.  Keith!  What  did  it 
matter!  What  did  anything  matter  but  her  love? 
Was  she  never  to  know  any  happiness!  Where, 
then,  was  her  reward !  A  heavenly  crown  of  mar- 
tyrdom! Wha^t  was  the  good  of  that?  Who  was 
the  better  for  it!  Passionately  Jenny  sobbed  at 
such  a  mockery  of  her  overwhelming  impulse. 
1 1  They ' '  hadn  't  such  a  problem  to  solve.  ' '  They ' ' 
didn't  know  what  it  was  to  have  your  whole  na- 
ture craving  for  the  thing  denied.  "They"  were 
cowards,  enemies  to  freedom  because  they  liked 
the  music  of  their  manacles!  They  could  not 
understand  what  it  was  to  love  so  that  one  adored 
the  beloved.  Not  blood,  but  water  ran  in  their" 
veins!  They  didn't  know.  .  .  .  They  couldn't 
•feel.  Jenny  knew,  Jenny  felt ;  Jenny  was  racked 
with  the  sweet  passion  that  blinds  the  eyes  to 
consequences.  She  must  go!  Wickedness  might 
he  her  nature :  what  then  ?  It  was  a  sweet  wicked- 
ness. It  was  her  choice ! 

Jenny's  glance  fell  upon  the  trimmed  hat  which 
lay  upon  the  table.  Nothing  but  a  cry  from  her 
father  could  have  prevented  her  from  taking  it 
up  and  setting  it  upon  her  head.  The  act  was 
her  defiance.  She  was  determined.  As  one  deaf 
and  blind,  she  went  out  of  the  kitchen,  and  to  the 
liall-stand,  fumbling  there  for  her  hatpins.  She 


THE  ADVENTURE  ill 

pinned  her  hat  as  deliberately  as  she  might  have 
done  in  leaving  the  house  any  morning.  Her  pale 
face  was  set.  She  had  flung  the  gage.  There 
remained  only  the  acts  consequential.  And  of 
those,  since  they  lay  behind  the  veil  of  night,  who 
could  now  speak  I  Not  Jenny! 

iv 

There  was  still  Pa.  He  was  there  like  a  secret, 
lying  snug  in  his  warm  bed,  drowsily  coaxing 
sleep  while  Jenny  planned  a  desertion.  Even 
when  she  was  in  the  room,  her  chin  grimly  set 
and  her  lips  quivering,  a  shudder  seemed  to  still 
her  heart.  She  was  afraid.  She  could  not 
forget  him.  He  lay  there  so  quiet  in  the  semi- 
darkness,  a  long  mound  under  the  bedclothes; 
and  she  was  almost  terrified  at  speaking  to  him 
because  her  imagination  was  heightened  by  the 
sight  of  his  dim  outline.  He  was  so  helpless! 
Ah,  if  there  had  only  been  two  Jennies,  one  to  go, 
one  to  stay.  The  force  of  uncontrollable  desire 
grappled  with  her  pity.  She  still  argued  within 
herself,  a  weary  echo  of  her  earlier  struggle.  He 
would  need  nothing,  she  was  sure.  It  would  be 
for  such  a  short  time  that  she  left  him.  He 
would  hardly  know  she  was  not  there.  He  would 
think  she  was  in  the  kitchen.  But  if  he  needed 
her?  If  he  called,  if  he  knocked  with  his  stick, 
and  she  did  not  come,  he  might  be  alarmed,  or 


112  NOCTURNE 

stubborn,  and  might  try  to  find  his  way  through 
the  passage  to  the  kitchen.  If  he  fell !  Her  flesh 
crept  as  she  imagined  him  helpless  upon  the  floor, 
feebly  struggling  to  rise.  ...  It  was  of  no  use. 
She  was  bound  to  tell  him.  .  .  . 

Jenny  moved  swiftly  from  the  room,  and  re- 
turned with  his  nightly  glass  and  jug  of  water. 
There  could  be  nothing  else  that  he  would  want 
during  the  night.  It  was  all  he  ever  had,  and  he 
would  sleep  so  until  morning.  She  approached 
the  bed  upon  tiptoe. 

' '  Pa, '  '  she  whispered.  '  *  Are  you  awake  ? ' '  He 
stirred,  and  looked  out  from  the  bedclothes,  and 
she  was  fain  to  bend  over  him  and  kiss  the  tumbled 
hair.  "Pa,  dear  ...  I  want  to  go  out.  I've 
got  to  go  out.  Will  you  be  all  right  if  I  leave 
you?  Sure?  You'll  be  a  good  boy,  and  not  move ! 
I  shall  be  back  before  Immy,  and  you  won't  be 
lonely,  or  frightened — will  you!"  She  exhorted 
him.  "See,  I've  got  to  go  out;  and  if  I  can't 
leave  you  .  .  .  You  are  awake,  Pa?" 

* '  Yes, ' '  breathed  Pa,  half  asleep.  ' '  A  good  boy. 
Night,  Jenny,  my  dearie  girl." 

She  drew  back  from  the  bed,  deeply  breathing, 
and  stole  to  the  door.  One  last  glance  she  took, 
at  the  room  and  aj;  the  bed,  closed  the  door  and 
stood  irresolute  for  a  moment  in  the  passage. 
Then  she  whipped  her  coat  from  the  peg  and  put 
it  on.  She  took  her  key  and  opened  the  front 


THE  ADVENTURE  113 

door.  Everything  was  black,  except  that  upon 
the  roofs  opposite  the  rising  moon  cast  a  glitter- 
ing surface  of  light,  and  the  chimney  pots  made 
slanting  broad  markings  upon  the  silvered  slates. 
The  road  was  quite  quiet  but  for  the  purring  of 
a  motor,  and  she  could  now,  as  her  eyes  were 
clearer,  observe  the  outline  of  a  large  car  drawn 
to  the  left  of  the  door.  As  the  lock  clicked  behind 
her  and  as  she  went  forward  the  side  lights  of  the 
motor  blazed  across  her  vision,  blinding  her  again. 

"Are  you  there?"  she  softly  called. 

"Yes,  miss."  The  man's  deep  voice  came 
sharply  out  of  the  darkness,  and  he  jumped  down 
from  his  seat  to  open  the  door  of  the  car.  The 
action  startled  Jenny.  Why  had  the  man  done  that ? 

"Did  you  know  I  was  coming?"  she  suddenly 
asked,  drawing  back  with  a  sort  of  chill. 

"Yes,  miss,"  said  the  man.  Jenny  caught  her 
breath.  She  half  turned  away,  like  a  shy  horse 
that  fears  the  friendly  hand.  He  had  been  sure 
of  her,  then.  Oh,  that  was  a  wretched  thought! 
She  was  shaken  to  the  heart  by  such  confidence. 
He  had  been  sure  of  her!  There  was  a  flash  of 
time  in  which  she  determined  not  to  go;  but  it 
passed  with  dreadful  speed.  Too  late,  now,  to 
draw  back.  Keith  was  waiting :  he  expected  her ! 
The  tears  were  in  her  eyes.  She  was  more  un- 
happy than  she  had  been  yet,  and  her  heart  was 
like  water. 


1 14  NOCTURNE 

The  man  still  held  open  the  door  of  the  car. 
The  inside  was  warm  and  inviting.  His  hand 
was  upon  her  elbow;  she  was  lost  in  the  soft 
cushions,  and  drowned  in  the  sweet  scent  of  the 
*  great  nosegay  of  flowers  which  hung  before  her 
-.  in  a  shining  holder.  And  the  car  was  purring 
more  loudly,  and  moving,  moving  as  a  ship 
moves  when  it  glides  so  gently  from  the  quay. 
Jenny  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  which 
cooled  her  burning  cheeks  as  if  they  had  been  ice. 
Slowly  the  car  nosed  out  of  the  road  into  the 
wider  thoroughfare.  Her  adventure  had  begun 
in  earnest.  There  was  no  drawing  back  now. 


CHAPTER  VI:  THE  YACHT 

i 

TO  lie  deep  among  cushions,  and  gently  to  ride 
out  along  streets  and  roads  that  she  had  so 
often  tramped  in  every  kind  of  weather,  was 
enough  to  intoxicate  Jenny.  She  heard  the  soft 
humming  of  the  engine,  and  saw  lamps  and  other 
vehicles  flashing  by,  with  a  sense  of  effortless 
speed  that  was  to  her  incomparable.  If  only  she 
had  been  mentally  at  ease,  and  free  from  distrac- 
tion, she  would  have  enjoyed  every  instant  of  her 
Journey.  Even  as  it  was,  she  could  not  restrain 
her  eagerness  as  they  overtook  a  tramcar,  and  the 
chauffeur  honked  his  horn,  and  they  glided  nearer 
and  nearer,  and  passed,  and  seemed  to  leave  the 
tram  standing.  Each  time  this  was  in  process  of 
happening  Jenny  gave  a  small  excited  chuckle, 
thinking  of  the  speed,  and  the  ease,  and  of  how 
the  people  in  the  tram  must  feel  at  being  defeated 
in  the  race.  Every  such  encounter  became  a  race, 
in  which  she  pressed  physically  forward  as  if  to 
urge  her  steed  to  the  final  effort.  Never  had 
Jenny  been  so  eager  for  victory,  so  elated  when 
its  certainty  was  confirmed.  It  was  worth  while 
to  live  for  such  experience.  How  she  envied  her 

115 


n6  NOCTURNE 

driver!  With  his  steady  hands  upon  the  steer- 
ing wheel.  .  .  .  Ah,  he  was  like  a  sailor,  like  the 
sailor  of  romance,  with  the  wind  beating  upon 
his  face  and  his  eyes  ever- watchful.  And  under 
his  hand  the  car  rode  splendidly  to  Keith. 

Jenny  closed  her  eyes.  She  could  feel  her  heart 
beating  fast,  and  the  blood  heating  her  cheeks, 
reddening  them.  The  blood  hurt  her,  and  her 
mouth  seemed  to  hurt,  too,  because  she  had  smiled 
so  much.  She  lay  back,  thinking  of  Keith  and  of 
their  meetings — so  few,  so  long  ago,  so  indescrib- 
ably happy  and  beautiful.  She  always  remem- 
bered him  as  he  had  been  when  first  he  had  caught 
her  eye,  when  he  had  stood  so  erect  among  other 
men  who  lounged  by  the  sea,  smoking  and  lolling 
at  ease.  He  was  different,  as  she  was  different. 
And  she  was  going  to  him.  How  happy  she  was ! 
And  why  did  her  breath  come  quickly  and  her 
heart  sink?  She  could  not  bother  to  decide  that 
question.  She  was  too  excited  to  do  so.  In  all 
her  life  she  had  never  known  a  moment  of  such 
breathless  anticipation,  of  excitement  which  she 
believed  was  all  happiness. 

There  was  one  other  thought  that  Jenny 
shirked,  and  that  went  on  nevertheless  in  spite  of 
her  inattention,  plying  and  moulding  somewhere 
deep  below  her  thrilling  joy.  The  thought  was, 
that  she  must  not  show  Keith  that  she  loved  him, 
because  while  she  knew — she  felt  sure — that  he 


THE  YACHT  117 

loved  her,  she  must  not  be  the  smallest  fraction 
of  time  before  him  in  confession.  She  was  too 
proud  for  that.  He  would  tell  her  that  he  loved 
her;  and  the  spell  would  be  broken.  Her  shy- 
ness would  be  gone ;  her  bravado  immediately  un- 
necessary. But  until  then  she  must  beware.  It 
was  as  necessary  to  Keith's  pride  as  to  her  own 
that  he  should  win  her.  The  Keith  she  loved 
would  not  care  for  a  love  too  easily  won.  The 
consciousness  of  this  whole  issue  was  at  work  be- 
low her  thoughts ;  and  her  thoughts,  from  joy  and 
dread,  to  the  discomfort  of  doubt,  raced  faster 
than  the  car,  speedless  and  headlong.  Among 
them  were  two  that  bitterly  corroded.  They 
were  of  Pa  and  of  Keith's  confidence  that 
she  would  come.  Both  were  as  poison  in  her 
mind. 

•  • 

11 

And  then  there  came  a  curious  sense  that  some- 
thing had  happened.  The  car  stopped  in  dark- 
ness, and  through  the  air  there  came  in  the  huge 
tones  of  Big  Ben  the  sound  of  a  striking  hour. 
It  was  nine  o'clock.  They  were  back  at  West- 
minster. Before  her  was  the  bridge,  and  above 
was  the  lighted  face  of  the  clock,  like  some  faded 
sun.  And  the  strokes  rolled  out  in  swelling  waves 
that  made  the  whole  atmosphere  feel  sound- 
laden.  The  chauffeur  had  opened  the  door  of 


1 18  NOCTURNE 

the  car,  and  was  offering  his  free  hand  to  help 
Jenny  to  step  down  to  the  ground. 

"Are  we  there?"  she  asked  in  a  bewildered 
way,  as  if  she  had  been  dreaming.  "How  quick 
we've  been!" 

"Yes,  miss.  Mr.  Redington's  down  the  steps. 
You  see  them  steps.  Mr.  Redington's  down  there 
in  the  dinghy.  Mind  how  you  go,  miss.  Hold 
tight  to  the  rail.  .  .  . "  He  closed  the  door  of 
the  car  and  pointed  to  the  steps. 

The  dinghy!  Those  stone  steps  to  the  black 
water!  Jenny  was  shaken  by  a  shudder.  The 
horror  of  the  water  which  had  come  upon  her 
earlier  in  the  evening  returned  more  intensely. 
The  strokes  of  the  clock  were  the  same,  the  dark- 
ness, the  feeling  of  the  sinister  water  rolling  there 
beneath  the  bridge,  resistlessly  carrying  its  bur- 
dens to  the  sea.  If  Keith  had  not  been  there 
she  would  have  turned  and  run  swiftly  away,  over- 
come by  her  fear.  She  timidly  reached  the  steps, 
and  stopped,  peering  down  through  the  dimness. 
She  put  her  foot  forward  so  that  it  hung  dubiously 
beyond  the  edge  of  the  pavement. 

"What  a  coward!"  she  thought,  violently,  with 
self-contempt.  It  drove  her  forward.  And  at 
that  moment  she  could  see  below,  at  the  edge  of 
the  lapping  water,  the  outline  of  a  small  boat  and 
of  a  man  who  sat  in  it  using  the  oars  against  the 
force  of  the  current  so  as  to  keep  the  boat  always 


THE  YACHT  119 

near  the  steps.  She  heard  a  dear  familiar  voice 
call  out  with  a  perfect  shout  of  welcome : 

"Jenny!  Good  girl!  How  are  you!  Come 
along ;  be  careful  how  you  come.  That's  it.  .  .  . 
Six  more,  and  then  stop!"  Jenny  obeyed  him — 
she  desired  nothing  else,  and  her  doubtings  were 
driven  away  in  a  breath.  She  went  quickly  down. 
The  back  water  lapped  and  wattled  against  the 
stone  and  the  boat,  and  she  saw  Keith  stand  up, 
drawing  the  dinghy  against  the  steps  and  offering 
her  his  hand.  He  had  previously  been  holding 
up  a  small  lantern  that  gilded  the  brown  mud 
with  a  feeble  colour  and  made  the  water  look 
like  oil.  "Now!"  he  cried  quickly.  "Step!" 
The  boat  rocked,  and  Jenny  crouched  down  upon 
the  narrow  seat,  aflame  with  rapture,  but  terrified 
of  the  water.  It  was  so  near,  so  inescapably  near. 
The  sense  of  its  smooth  softness,  its  yieldingness, 
and  the  danger  lurking  beneath  the  flowing  sur- 
face was  acute.  She  tried  more  desperately  to  sit 
exactly  in  the  middle  of  the  boat,  so  that  she 
should  not  overbalance  it.  She  closed  her  eyes, 
sitting  very  still,  and  heard  the  water  saying  plup- 
plup-plup  all  round  her,  and  she  was  afraid.  It 
meant  soft  death :  she  could  not  forget  that.  Jenny 
could  not  swim.  She  was  stricken  between  ter- 
ror and  joy  that  overwhelmed  her.  Then: 

"That's  my  boat,"  Keith  said,  pointing.  "I 
say,  you  are  a  sport  to  come!"  Jenny  saw  lights 


120  NOCTURNE 

shining  from  the  middle  of  the  river,  and  could 
imagine  that  a  yacht  lay  there  stubbornly  resist- 
ing the  current  of  the  flowing  Thames. 

iii 

Crouching  still,  she  watched  Keith  bend  to  his 
oars,  driving  the  boat's  nose  beyond  the  shadowy 
yacht  because  he  knew  that  he  must  allow  for  the 
current.  Her  eyes  devoured  him,  and  her  heart 
sang.  Plup-plup-plup-plup  said  the  water.  The 
oars  plashed  gently.  Jenny  saw  the  blackness 
gliding  beside  her,  thick  and  swift.  They  might 
go  down,  down,  down  in  that  black  nothingness, 
and  nobody  would  know  of  it.  ...  The  oars 
ground  against  the  edge  of  the  dinghy — wood 
against  wood,  grumbling  and  echoing  upon  the 
water.  Behind  everything  she  heard  the  roaring 
of  London,  and  was  aware  of  lights,  moving  and 
stationary,  high  above  them.  How  low  upon  the 
water  they  were !  It  seemed  to  be  on  a  level  with 
the  boat's  edges.  And  how  much  alone  they  were, 
moving  there  in  the  darkness  while  the  life  of 
the  city  went  on  so  far  above.  If  the  boat  sank! 
Jenny  shivered,  for  she  knew  that  she  would  be 
drowned.  She  could  imagine  a  white  face  under 
the  river's  surface,  lanterns  flashing,  and  then — 
nothing.  It  would  be  all  another  secret  happen- 
ing, a  mystery,  the  work  of  a  tragic  instant ;  and 
Jenny  Blanchard  would  be  forgotten  for  ever,  as 


THE  YACHT  121 

if  she  had  never  been.    It  was  a  horrid  sensation 
to  her  as  she  sat  there,  so  near  death. 

And  all  the  time  that  Jenny  was  mutely  en- 
during these  terrors  they  were  slowly  nearing  the 
yacht,  which  grew  taller  as  they  approached,  and 
more  clearly  outlined  against  the  sky.  The  moon 
was  beginning  to  catch  all  the  buildings  and  to 
lighten  the  heavens.  Far  above,  and  very  pale, 
were  stars;  but  the  sky  was  still  murky,  so  that 
the  river  remained  in  darkness.  They  came  along- 
side the  yacht.  Keith  shipped  his  oars,  caught 
hold  of  something  which  Jenny  could  not  see; 
and  the  dinghy  was  borne  round,  away  from  the 
yacht's  side.  He  half  rose,  catching  with  both 
his  hands  at  an  object  projecting  from  the  yacht, 
and  hastily  knotting  a  rope.  Jenny  saw  a  short 
ladder  hanging  over  the  side,  and  a  lantern 
shining. 

"There  you  are!"  Keith  cried.  "Up  you  go! 
It's  quite  steady.  Hold  the  brass  rail.  ..." 

After  a  second  in  which  her  knees  were  too 
weak  to  allow  of  her  moving,  Jenny  conquered 
her  tremors,  rose  unsteadily  in  the  boat,  and  cast 
herself  at  the  brass  rail  that  Keith  had  indicated. 
To  the  hands  that  had  been  so  tightly  clasped 
together,  steeling  her,  the  rail  was  startlingly 
cold;  but  the  touch  of  it  nerved  her,  because  it 
was  firm.  She  felt  the  dinghy  yield  as  she  stepped 
from  it,  and  she  seemed  for  one  instant  to  be 


122  NOCTURNE 

hanging  precariously  in  space  above  the  terrify- 
ing waters  Then  she  was  at  the  top  of  the  lad- 
der, ready  for  Keith 's  warning  shout  about  the 
descent  to  the  deck.  She  jumped  down.  She  was 
aboard  the  yacht:  and  as  she  glanced  around 
Keith  was  upon  the  deck  beside  her,  catching  her 
arm.  Jenny 's  triumphant  complacency  was  so 
great  that  she  gave  a  tiny  nervous  laugh.  She 
had  not  spoken  at  all  until  this  moment:  Keith 
had  not  heard  her  voice. 

"Well!"  said  Jenny.  ''That's  over!"  And 
she  gave  an  audible  sigh  of  relief.  "Thank 
goodness!" 

"And  here  you  are!"  Keith  cried.  "Aboard 
the  Minerva/' 

iv 

He  led  her  to  a  door,  and  down  three  steps. 
And  then  it  seemed  to  Jenny  as  if  Paradise  burst 
upon  her.  She  had  never  before  seen  such  a  room 
as  this  cabin.  It  was  a  room  such  as  she  had 
dreamed  about  in  those  ambitious  imaginings  of 
a  wondrous  future  which  had  always  been  so 
vaguely  irritating  to  Emmy.  It  seemed,  partly 
because  the  ceiling  was  low,  to  be  very  spacious ; 
the  walls  and  ceiling  were  of  a  kind  of  dusky 
amber  hue;  a  golden  brown  was  everywhere  the 
prevailing  tint.  The  tiny  curtains,  the  long  set- 
tees into  which  one  sank,  the  chairs,  the  shades 


THE  YACHT  123 

of  the  mellow  lights — all  were  of  some  variety  of 
this  delicate  golden  brown.  In  the  middle  of  the 
cabin  stood  a  square  table;  and  on  the  table, 
arrayed  in  an  exquisitely  white  tablecloth,  was 
laid  a  wondrous  meal.  The  table  was  laid  for 
two :  candles  with  amber  shades  made  silver  shine 
and  glasses  glitter.  Upon  a  fruit  stand  were 
peaches  and  nectarines;  upon  a  tray  she  saw  de- 
canters; little  dishes  crowding  the  table  bore 
mysterious  things  to  eat  such  as  Jenny  had  never 
before  seen.  Upon  a  side  table  stood  other  dishes, 
a  tray  bearing  coffee  cups  and  ingredients  for 
the  provision  of  coffee,  curious  silver  boxes. 
Everywhere  she  saw  flowers  similar  to  those 
which  had  been  in  the  motor  car.  Under  her  feet 
was  a  carpet  so  thick  that  she  felt  her  shoes  must 
be  hidden  in  its  pile.  And  over  all  was  this  air 
of  quiet  expectancy  which  suggested  that  every- 
thing awaited  her  coming.  Jenny  gave  a  deep 
sigh,  glanced  quickly  at  Keith,  who  was  watching 
her,  and  turned  away,  her  breath  catching.  The 
contrast  was  too  great:  it  made  her  unhappy. 
She  looked  down  at  her  skirt,  at  her  hands;  she 
thought  of  her  hat  and  her  hidden  shoes.  She 
thought  of  Emmy,  the  bread  and  butter  pudding, 
of  Alf  Bylett  .  .  .  of  Pa  lying  at  home  in  bed, 
alone  in  the  house. 

v 
Keith  drew  her  forward   slightly,   until  she 


124  NOCTURNE 

came  within  the  soft  radiance  of  the  cabin  lights. 

"I  say,  it  is  sporting  of  you  to  come!"  he 
said.  "Let's  have  a  look  at  you — do!" 

They  stood  facing  one  another.  Keith  saw 
Jenny,  tall  and  pale,  looking  thin  in  her  shabby 
dress,  but  indescribably  attractive  and  beautiful 
even  in  her  new  shyness.  And  Jenny  saw  the 
man  she  loved:  her  eyes  were  veiled,  but  they 
were  unfathomably  those  of  one  deeply  in  love. 
She  did  not  know  how  to  hide  the  emotions  with 
which  she  was  so  painfully  struggling.  Pride  and 
joy  in  him;  shyness  and  a  sort  of  dread;  hunger 
and  reserve — Keith  might  have  read  them  all,  so 
plainly  were  they  written.  Yet  her  first  words 
were  wounded  and  defiant. 

*  *  The  man  .  .  .  that  man  .  .  .  He  knew  I  was 
coming,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  of  reproach.  "You 
were  pretty  sure  I  should  come,  you  know." 

Keith  said  quietly: 

"I  hoped  you  would."  And  then  he  lowered 
his  eyes.  She  was  disarmed,  and  they  both  knew. 

Keith  Redington  was  nearly  six  feet  in  height. 
He  was  thin,  and  even  bony;  but  he  was  very 
toughly  and  strongly  built,  and  his  face  was  as 
clean  and  brown  as  that  of  any  healthy  man  who 
travels  far  by  sea.  He  was  less  dark  than  Jenny, 
and  his  hair  was  almost  auburn,  so  rich  a  chestnut 
was  it.  His  eyes  were  blue  and  heavily  lashed; 
his  hands  were  long  and  brown,  with  small 


THE  YACHT  125 

freckles  between  the  knuckles.  He  stood  with  in- 
comparable ease,  his  hands  and  arms  always 
ready,  but  in  perfect  repose.  His  lips,  for  he  was 
clean-shaven,  were  keen  and  firm.  His  glance 
was  fearless.  As  the  phrase  is,  he  looked  every 
inch  a  sailor,  born  to  challenge  the  winds  and  the 
waters.  To  Jenny,  who  knew  only  those  men 
who  show  at  once  what  they  think  or  feel,  his 
greater  breeding  made  Keith  appear  inscrutable, 
as  if  he  had  belonged  to  a  superior  race.  She 
could  only  smile  at  him,  with  parted  lips,  not  at 
all  the  baffling  lady  of  the  mirror,  or  the  con- 
temptuous younger  sister,  or  the  daring  franc- 
tireur  of  her  little  home  at  Kennington  Park. 
Jenny  Blanchard  she  remained,  but  the  simple, 
eager  Jenny  to  whom  these  other  Jennies  were 
but  imperious  moods. 

'  *  Well,  I  've  come, ' '  she  said.  ' '  But  you  needn  't 
have  been  so  sure." 

Keith  gave  an  irrepressible  grin.  He  motioned 
her  to  the  table,  shaking  his  head  at  her  tone. 

"Come  and  have  some  grub,"  he  said  cheer- 
fully. "I  was  about  as  sure  as  you  were.  You 
needn't  worry  about  that,  old  sport.  There's  so 
little  time.  Come  and  sit  down;  there's  a  good 
girl.  And  presently  I  '11  tell  you  all  about  it. ' '  'He 
looked  so  charming  as  he  spoke  that  Jenny  obedi- 
ently smiled  in  return,  and  the  light  came  rush- 
ing into  her  eyes,  chasing  away  the  shadows,  so 


126  NOCTURNE 

that  she  felt  for  that  time  immeasurably  happy 
and  unsuspicious.  She  sat  down  at  the  laden 
table,  smiling  again  at  the  marvels  which  it 
carried. 

"My  word,  what  a  feast!"  she  said  helplessly. 
"Talk  about  the  Ritz!" 

Keith  busied  himself  with  the  dishes.  The 
softly  glowing  cabin  threw  over  Jenny  its  spell; 
the  comfort,  the  faint  slow  rocking  of  the  yacht, 
the  sense  of  enclosed  solitude,  lulled  her.  Every 
small  detail  of  ease,  which  might  have  made  her 
nervous,  merged  with  the  others  in  a  marvellous 
contentment  because  she  was  with  Keith,  cut  off 
from  the  world,  happy  and  at  peace.  If  she 
sighed,  it  was  because  her  heart  was  full.  But 
she  had  forgotten  the  rest  of  the  evening,  her 
shabbiness,  every  care  that  troubled  her  normal 
days.  She  had  cast  these  things  off  for  the  time, 
and  was  in  a  glow  of  pleasure.  She  smiled  at 
Keith  with  a  sudden  mischievousness.  They 
both  smiled,  without  guilt,  and  without  guile,  like 
two  children  at  a  reconciliation. 

vi 

"Soup?"  said  Keith,  and  laid  before  her  a 
steaming  plate.  "All  done  by  kindness." 

"Have  you  been  cooking!"  Some  impulse 
made  Jenny  motherly.  It  seemed  a  strange  re- 
versal of  the  true  order  that  he  should  cook  for 


THE  YACHT  127 

her.    "It's  like  The  White  Cat  to  have  it.  .   .   . " 

"It's  a  secret,"  Keith  laughed.  "Tell  you 
later.  Fire  away!"  He  tasted  the  soup,  while 
Jenny  looked  at  five  little  letter  biscuits  in  her 
own  plate.  She  spelt  them  out  E  T  K  I  EL- 
KEITH.  He  watched  her,  enjoying  the  spectacle 
of  the  naive  mind  in  action  as  the  light  darted 
into  her  face.  "I've  got  JENNY,"  he  said,  em- 
barrassed. She  craned,  and  read  the  letters  with 
open  eyes  of  marvel.  They  both  beamed  afresh 
at  the  primitive  fancy. 

"How  did  you  do  it?"  Jenny  asked  inquisi- 
tively. "But  it's  nice."  They  supped  the  soup. 
Followed,  whitebait :  thousands  of  little  fish.  .  .  . 
Jenny  hardly  liked  to  crunch  them.  Keith 
whipped  away  the  plates,  and  dived  back  into 
the  cabin  with  a  huge  pie  that  made  her  gasp. 
"My  gracious!"  said  Jenny.  "I  can  never  eat 
it!" 

"Not  all  of  it,"  Keith  admitted.  "Just  a  bit, 
eh?"  He  carved. 

"Oh,  thank  goodness  it's  not  stew  and  bread 
and  butter  pudding!"  cried  Jenny,  as  the  first 
mouthful  of  the  pie  made  her  shut  her  eyes 
tightly.  "It's  like  heaven!" 

"If  they  have  pies  there."  Jenny  had  not 
meant  that:  she  had  meant  only  that  her  sensa- 
tions were  those  of  supreme  contentment.  "Give 
me  the  old  earth;  and  supper  with  Jenny!" 


128  NOCTURNE 

" Really?"  Jenny  was  all  brimming  with 
delight. 

"What  will  you  have  to  drink?  Claret?  Bur- 
gundy?" Keith  was  again  upon  his  feet.  He 
poured  out  a  large  glass  of  red  wine  and  laid  it 
before  her.  Jenny  saw  with  marvel  the  reflec- 
tions of  light  on  the  wine  and  of  the  wine  upon 
the  tablecloth.  She  took  a  timid  sip,  and  the 
wine  ran  tingling  into  her  being. 

"High  life,"  she  murmured.  "Don't  make  me 
tipsy!"  They  exchanged  overjoyed  and  inti- 
mate glances,  laughing. 

There  followed  trifle.  Trifle  had  always  been 
Jenny's  dream;  and  this  trifle  was  her  dream 
come  true.  It  melted  in  the  mouth;  its  flavours 
were  those  of  innumerable  spices.  She  was 
transported  with  happiness  at  the  mere  thought 
of  such  trifle.  As  her  palate  vainly  tried  to  un- 
ravel the  secrets  of  the  dish,  Keith,  who  was 
closely  observant,  saw  that  she  was  lost  in  a  kind 
of  fanatical  adoration  of  trifle. 

"You  like  it?"  he  asked. 

* '  I  shall  never  forget  it ! "  cried  Jenny.  * '  Never 
as  long  as  I  live.  When  I'm  an  old  .  .  .  great- 
aunt  .  .  . "  She  had  hesitated  at  her  destiny. 
"I  shall  bore  all  the  kids  with  tales  about  it.  I 
shall  say  'That  night  on  the  yacht  .  .  .  when 
I  first  knew  what  trifle  meant.  .  .  . '  They  won't 
half  get  sick  of  it.  But  I  shan't." 


THE  YACHT  129 

"You'll  like  to  think  about  it!"  asked  Keith. 
"Like  to  remember  to-night?" 

"Will  you?"  parried  Jenny.  "The  night  you 
had  Jenny  Blanchard  to  supper?"  Their  eyes 
met,  in  a  long  and  searching  glance,  in  which 
candour  was  not  unmixed  with  a  kind  of  measur- 
ing distrust. 

vii 

Keith's  face  might  have  been  carven  for  all  the 
truth  that  Jenny  got  from  it  then.  There  darted 
across  her  mind  the  chauffeur's  certainty  that  she 
was  to  be  his  passenger.  She  took  another  sip  of 
wine. 

"Yes,"  she  said  again,  very  slowly.  "You 
were  sure  I  was  coming.  You  got  it  all  ready. 
Been  a  bit  of  a  sell  if  I  hadn't  come.  You'd  have 
had  to  set  to  and  eat  it  yourself.  ...  Or  get 
somebody  else  to  help  you." 

She  meant  * '  another  girl, ' '  but  she  did  not  know 
she  meant  that  until  the  words  were  spoken.  Her 
own  meaning  stabbed  her  heart.  That  icy  knowl- 
edge that  Keith  was  sure  of  her  was  bitterest 
of  all.  It  made  her  happiness  defiant  rather  than 
secure.  He  was  the  only  man  for  her.  How  did 
she  know  there  were  not  other  women  for  Keith ! 
How  could  she  ever  know  that?  Rather,  it  sank 
into  her  consciousness  that  there  must  be  other 
women.  His  very  ease  showed  her  that.  The 


.130  NOCTURNE 

equanimity  of  his  laughing  expression  brought 
her  the  unwelcome  knowledge. 

"I  should  have  looked  pretty  small  if  I'd  made 
no  preparations,  shouldn't  I?"  Keith  inquired  in 
a  dry  voice.  "If  you'd  come  here  and  found  the 
place  cold  and  nothing  to  eat  you'd  have  made  a 
bit  of  a  shindy." 

A  reserve  had  fallen  between  them.  Jenny 
knew  she  had  been  unwise.  It  pressed  down  upon 
her  heart  the  feeling  that  he  was  somehow  still  a 
stranger  to  her.  And  all  the  time  they  had  been 
apart  he  had  not  seemed  a  stranger,  but  one  to 
whom  her  most  fleeting  and  intimate  thoughts 
might  freely  have  been  given.  That  had  been 
the  wonderful  thought  to  her — that  they  had  met 
so  seldom  and  understood  each  other  so  well.  She 
had  made  a  thousand  speeches  to  him  in  her 
dreams.  Together,  in  these  same  dreams,  they 
had  seen  and  done  innumerable  things  together, 
always  in  perfect  confidence,  in  perfect  under- 
standing. Yet  now,  when  she  saw  him  afresh, 
all  was  different.  Keith  was  different.  He  was 
browner,  thinner,  less  warm  in  manner ;  and  more 
familiar,  too,  as  though  he  were  sure  of  her.  His 
clothes  were  different,  and  his  carriage.  He  was 
not  the  same  man.  It  was  still  Keith,  still  the 
man  Jenny  loved;  but  as  though  he  were  also 
somebody  else  whom  she  was  meeting  for  the  first 
time.  Her  love,  the  love  intensified  by  long  brood- 


THE  YACHT  131 

ings,  was  as  strong;  but  he  was  a  stranger.  All 
that  intimacy  which  seemed  to  have  been  estab- 
lished between  them  once  and  for  ever  was  broken 
by  the  new  contact  in  unfamiliar  surroundings. 
She  was  shy,  uncertain,  hesitating;  and  in  her 
shyness  she  had  blundered.  She  had  been  unwise, 
and  he  was  offended  when  she  could  least  afford 
to  have  him  so  offended.  It  took  much  resolu- 
tion upon  Jenny's  part  to  essay  the  recovery  of 
lost  ground.  But  the  tension  was  the  worse  for 
this  mistake,  and  she  suffered  the  more  because 
of  her  anxious  emotions. 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said  at  last,  as  calmly  as  she 
could.  "I  daresay  we  should  have  managed.  I 
mightn't  have  come.  But  I've  come,  and  you 
had  all  these  beautiful  things  ready ;  and  ..." 
Her  courage  to  be  severe  abruptly  failed;  and 
lamely  she  concluded:  "And  it's  simply  like  fairy- 
land. ...  I'm  ever  so  happy." 

Keith  grinned  again,  showing  perfect  white 
teeth.  For  a  moment  he  looked,  Jenny  thought, 
quite  eager.  Or  was  that  only  her  fancy  because 
she  so  desired  to  see  it?  She  shook  her  head; 
and  that  drew  Keith's  eye. 

"More  trifle  I"  he  suggested,  with  an  arch 
glance.  Jenny  noticed  he  wore  a  gold  ring  upon 
the  little  finger  of  his  right  hand.  It  gleamed  in 
the  faint  glow  of  the  cabin.  So,  also,  did  the 
fascinating  golden  hairs  upon  the  back  of  his 


132  NOCTURNE 

hand.  Gently  the  cabin  rose  and  fell,  rocking  so 
slowly  that  she  could  only  occasionally  be  sure 
that  the  movement  was  true.  She  shook  her  head 
in  reply. 

''I've  had  one  solid  meal  to-night,"  she  ex- 
plained. "Wish  I  hadn't!  If  I'd  known  I  was 
coming  out  I'd  have  starved  myself  all  day.  Then 
you'd  have  been  shocked  at  me!" 

Keith  demurely  answered,  as  if  to  reassure 
her: 

"Takes  a  lot  to  shock  me.    Have  a  peach?" 

* '  I  must ! ' '  she  breathed.  ' '  I  can 't  let  the  chance 
slip.  0-oh,  what  a  scent!"  She  reached  the 
peach  towards  him.  "Grand,  isn't  it!"  Jenny 
discovered  for  Keith's  quizzical  gaze  an  unex- 
pected dimple  in  each  pale  cheek.  He  might  have 
been  Adam,  and  she  the  original  temptress. 

"Shall  I  peel  it?" 

1 '  Seems  a  shame  to  take  it  off ! "  Jenny  watched 
his  deft  fingers  as  he  stripped  the  peach.  The 
glowing  skin  of  the  fruit  fell  in  lifeless  peelings 
upon  his  plate,  dying  as  it  were  under  her  eyes, 
Keith  had  poured  wine  for  her  in  another,  smaller, 
glass.  She  shook  her  head. 

"I  shall  be  drunk!"  she  protested.  "Then  I 
should  sing !  Horrible,  it  would  be ! " 

"Not  with  a  little  port  ...  I'm  not  pressing 
you  to  a  lot.  Am  I?"  He  brought  coffee  to  the 
table,  and  she  began  to  admire  first  of  all  the 


THE  YACHT  133 

pattern  of  the  silver  tray.  Jenny  had  never  seen 
such  a  tray  before,  outside  a  shop,  nor  so  deli- 
cately porcelain  a  coif  ee-service.  It  helped  to  give 
her  the  sense  of  strange,  unforgettable  experience. 

"You  didn't  say  if  you'd  remember  this  even- 
ing," she  slowly  reflected.  Keith  looked  sharply 
up  from  the  coffee,  which  he  was  pouring,  she  saw, 
from  a  thermos  flask. 

"Didn't  I?"  he  said  "Of  course  I  shall  re- 
member it.  I've  done  better.  I've  looked  for- 
ward to  it.  That's  something  you've  not  done. 
I've  looked  forward  to  it  for  weeks.  You  don't 
think  of  that.  We've  been  in  the  Mediterranean, 
coasting  about.  I've  been  planning  what  I'd  do 
when  we  got  back.  Then  Templecombe  said  he'd 
be  coming  right  up  to  London;  and  I  planned  to 
see  you." 

'  *  Templecombe  ? ' '  Jenny  queried.  ' l  Who 's  he  ?  " 

"He's  the  lord  who  owns  this  yacht.  Did  you 
think  it  was  my  yacht  f" 

"No  ...  I  hoped  it  wasn't  ..."  Jenny  said 
slowly. 

viii 

Keith's  eyes  were  upon  her;  but  she  looked  at 
her  peach  stone,  her  hand  still  lightly  holding  the 
fruit  knife,  and  her  fingers  half  caught  by  the 
beam  of  a  candle  which  stood  beside  her.  He 
persisted : 


134  NOCTURNE 

"Well,  Templecombe  took  his  valet,  who  does 
the  cooking;  and  my  hand — my  sailorman — 
wanted  to  go  and  visit  his  wife  .  .  .  and  that 
left  me  to  see  after  the  yacht.  D'you  see?  I 
had  the  choice  of  keeping  Tomkins  aboard,  or 
staying  aboard  myself." 

"You  might  almost  have  given  me  longer  no- 
tice," urged  Jenny.  "It  seems  to  me." 

"No.  I'm  under  instructions.  I'm  not  a  free 
man,"  said  Keith  soberly.  "I  was  once;  but  I'm 
not  now.  I'm  captain  of  a  yacht.  I  do  what  I'm 
told." 

Jenny  fingered  her  port-wine  glass,  and  in  look- 
ing at  the  light  upon  the  wine  her  eyes  became 
fixed. 

"Will  you  ever  do  anything  else?"  she  asked. 
Keith  shrugged  slightly. 

"You  want  to  know  a  lot,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  know  very  much,  do  I?"  Jenny  an- 
swered, in  a  little  dead  voice.  "Just  somewhere 
about  nothing  at  all.  I  have  to  pretend  the  rest. ' ' 

"D'you  want  to  know  it!" 

Jenny  gave  a  quick  look  at  his  hands  which 
lay  upon  the  table.  She  could  not  raise  her  eyes 
further.  She  was  afraid  to  do  so.  Her  heart 
seemed  to  be  beating  in  her  throat. 

"It's  funny  me  having  to  ask  for  it,  isn't  it!" 
she  said,  suddenly  haggard. 


CHAPTER  VII:  MORTALS 

i  v '  V 

i 

KEITH  did  not  answer.  That  was  the  one 
certainty  she  had ;  and  her  heart  sank.  He 
did  not  answer.  That  meant  that  really  she  was 
nothing  to  him,  that  he  neither  wanted  nor  trusted 
her.  And  yet  she  had  thought  a  moment  before 
—only  a  moment  before — that  he  was  as  moved 
as  herself.  They  had  seemed  to  be  upon  the 
brink  of  confidences ;  and  now  he  had  drawn  back. 
Each  instant  deepened  her  sense  of  failure. 
When  Jenny  stealthily  looked  sideways,  Keith 
sat  staring  before  him,  his  expression  unchanged. 
She  had  failed. 

"You  don't  trust  me,"  she  said,  with  her  voice 
trembling.  There  was  another  silence.  Then: 

"Don't  I?"  Keith  asked,  indifferently.  He 
reached  his  hand  out  and  patted  hers,  even  hold- 
ing it  lightly  for  an  instant.  "I  think  I  do.  You 
don't  think  so?" 

"No."    She  merely  framed  the  word,  sighing. 

"You're  wrong,  Jenny."  Keith's  voice 
changed.  He  deliberately  looked  round  the  table 
at  the  little  dishes  that  still  lay  there  untouched. 
"Have  some  of  these  sweets,  will  you.  .  .  .  No?" 

135 


136  NOCTURNE 

Jenny  could  only  draw  her  breath  sharply,  shak- 
ing her  head.  *  *  Almonds,  then  ? ' '  She  moved  im- 
patiently, her  face  distorted  with  wretched  exas- 
peration. As  if  he  could  see  that,  and  as  if  fear 
of  the  outcome  hampered  his  resolution,  Keith 
hurried  on.  "Well,  look  here:  we'll  clear  the 
table  together,  if  you  like.  Take  the  things 
through  the  other  cabin — that  one — to  the  galley ; 
root  up  the  table  by  its  old  legs — I'll  show  you 
how  its'  done ; — and  then  we  can  have  a  talk.  I'll 
...  I'll  tell  you  as  much  as  I  can  about  every- 
thing you  want  to  know.  That  do  I" 

"I  can't  stay  long.  I've  left  Pa  in  bed."  She 
could  not  keep  the  note  of  roughness  from  her 
pleading  voice,  although  shame  at  being  petulant 
was  struggling  with  her  deeper  feeling. 

"Well,  he  won't  want  to  get  up  again  yet,  will 
he?"  Keith  answered  composedly.  Oh,  he  had 
nerves  of  steel!  thought  Jenny.  "I  mean,  this 
is  his  bedtime,  I  suppose?"  There  was  no  an- 
swer. Jenny  looked  at  the  tablecloth,  numbed  by 
her  sensations.  "Do  you  have  to  look  after  him 
all  the  time?  That's  a  bit  rough.  ..." 

"No,"  was  forced  from  Jenny.  "No,  I  don't 
.  .  .  not  generally.  But  to-night — but  that's  a 
long  story,  too.  With  rows  in  it."  Which  made 
Keith  laugh.  He  laughed  not  quite  naturally, 
forcing  the  last  several  jerks -of  his  laughter,  so 
that  she  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  his  possible 


MORTALS  137 

contempt.  It  was  as  if  everything  she  aaid  was 
lost  before  ever  it  reached  his  heart — as  if  the 
words  were  like  weak  blows  against  an  over- 
whelming strength.  Discouragement  followed 
and  deepened  after  every  blow — every  useless  and 
baffled  word.  There  was  again  silence,  while 
Jenny  set  her  teeth,  forcing  back  her  bitterness 
and  her  chagrin,  trying  to  behave  as  usual,  and 
to  check  the  throbbing  within  her  breast.  He  was 
trying  to  charm  her,  teasingly  to  wheedle  her 
back  into  kindness,  altogether  misunderstanding 
her  mood.  He  was  guarded  and  considerate  when 
she  wanted  only  passionate  and  abject  abandon- 
ment of  disguise. 

"We'll  toss  up  who  shall  begin  first,"  Keith 
said  in  a  jocular  way.  "How's  that  for  an 
idea?" 

Jenny  felt  her  lips  tremble.  Frantically  she 
shook  her  head,  compressing  the  unruly  lips. 
Only  by  keeping  in  the  same  position,  by  making 
herself  remain  still,  could  she  keep  back  the  tears. 
Her  thought  went  on,  that  Keith  was  cruelly  play- 
ing with  her,  mercilessly  watching  the  effect  of 
his  own  coldness  upon  her  too  sensitive  heart.  Eh, 
but  it  was  a  lesson  to  her!  What  brutes  men 
could  be,  at  this  game!  And  that  thought  gave 
her,  presently,  an  unnatural  composure.  If  he 
were  cruel,  she  would  never  show  her  wounds. 
She  would  sooner  die.  But  her  eyes,  invisible  to 


138  NOCTURNE 

him,  were  dark  with  reproach,  and  her  face  drawn 
with  agony. 

"Well,  we'd  better  do  something,"  she  said,  in 
a  sharp  voice;  and  rose  to  her  feet.  "Where  is 
it  the  things  go?"  Keith  also  rose,  and  Jenny 
felt  suddenly  sick  and  faint  at  the  relaxation  of 
her  self-control. 

ii 

"Hullo,  hullo!"  Keith  cried,  and  was  at  once 
by  her  side.  "Here;  have  a  drink  of  water." 
Jenny,  steadying  herself  by  the  table,  sipped  a 
little  of  the  water. 

"Is  it  the  wine  that's  made  me  stupid?"  she 
asked.  "I  feel  as  if  my  teeth  were  swollen,  and 
my  skin  was  too  tight  for  my  bones.  Beastly!" 

"How  horrid!"  Keith  said  lightly,  taking  from 
her  hand  the  glass  of  water.  "  If  it 's  the  wine  you 
won't  feel  the  effects  long.  Go  on  deck  if  you 
like.  You'll  feel  all  right  in  the  air.  I'll  clear 
away."  Jenny  would  not  leave  him.  She  shook 
her  head  decidedly.  "Wait  a  minute,  then.  I'll 
come  too!" 

They  moved  quickly  about,  leaving  the  fruit 
and  xittle  sweets  and  almonds  upon  the  sidetable, 
but  carrying  everything  else  through  a  sleeping- 
cabin  into  the  galley.  It  was  this  other  cabin 
that  still  further  deepened  Jenny's  sense  of  pain 
— of  inferiority.  That  was  the  feeling  now  most 


MORTALS  139 

painful.  She  had  just  realised  it.  She  was  a 
common  girl;  and  Keith — ah,  Keith  was  secure 
enough,  she  thought. 

In  that  moment  Jenny  deliberately  gave  him 
up.  She  felt  it  was  impossible  that  he  should 
love  her.  When  she  looked  around  it  was  with  a 
sorrowfulness  as  of  farewell.  These  things  were 
the  things  that  Keith  knew  and  had  known— 
that  she  would  never  again  see  but  in  the  bitter 
memories  of  this  night.  The  night  would  pass, 
but  her  sadness  would  remain.  She  would  think 
of  him  here.  She  gave  him  up,  quite  humble  in 
her  perception  of  the  disparity  between  them. 
And  yet  her  own  love  would  stay,  and  she  must 
store  her  memory  full  of  all  that  she  would  want 
to  know  when  she  thought  of  his  every  moment. 
Jenny  ceased  to  desire  him.  She  somehow — it 
may  have  been  by  mere  exhausted  cessation  of 
feeling — wished  only  to  understand  his  life  and 
then  never  to  see  him  again.  It  was  a  kind  of 
numbness  that  seized  her.  Then  she  awoke  once 
again,  stirred  by  the  bright  light  and  by  the  lux- 
ury of  her  surroundings. 

"This  where  you  sleep?"  With  passionate 
interest  in  everything  that  concerned  him,  Jenny 
looked  eagerly  about  the  cabin.  She  now  indi- 
cated a  broad  bunk,  with  a  beautifully  white  coun- 
terpane and  such  an  eiderdown  quilt  as  she  might 
optimistically  have  dreamed  about.  The  tiny 


i4o  NOCTURNE 

cabin  was  so  compact,  and  so  marvellously  fur- 
nished with  beautiful  things  that  it  seemed  to 
Jenny  a  kind  of  suite  in  tabloid  form.  She  did 
not  understand  how  she  had  done  without  all 
these  luxurious  necessities  for  five-and-twenty 
years. 

' '  Sometimes,  ' '  Keith  answered,  having  followed 
her  marvelling  eye  from  beauty  to  beauty. 
"When  there's  company  I  sleep  forward  with  the 
others."  He  had  been  hurrying  by  with  a  cruet 
and  the  bread  dish  when  her  exclamation  checked 
him. 

"Is  this  lord  a  friend  of  yours,  then?"  Jenny 
asked. 

* '  Sometimes, ' '  Keith  dryly  answered.  '  *  Under- 
stand!" Jenny  frowned  again  at  his  tone. 

"No,"  she  said.    Keith  passed  on. 

Jenny  stood  surveying  the  sleeping-cabin.  A 
whole  nest  of  drawers  attracted  her  eye,  deep 
drawers  that  would  hold  innumerable  things. 
Then  she  saw  a  hand-basin  with  taps  for  hot  and 
cold  water.  Impulsively  she  tried  the  hot- water 
tap,  and  was  both  relieved  and  disappointed  when 
it  gasped  and  offered  her  cold  water.  There  were 
monogramed  toilet  appointments  beautiful  to  see ; 
a  leather-cased  carriage  clock,  a  shelf  full  of  books 
that  looked  fascinating ;  towels ;  tiny  rugs ;  a  light 
above  the  hand-basin,  and  another  to  switch  on 
above  the  bunk.  It  was  wonderful!  And 


MORTALS  141 

there  was  a  looking-glass  before  her  in  which  she 
could  see  her  own  reflection  as  clear  as  day — 
too  clearly  for  her  pleasure ! 

The  face  she  irresistibly  saw  in  this  genuine 
mirror  looked  pale  and  tired,  although  upon  each 
white  cheek  there  was  a  hard  scarlet  flush.  Her 
eyes  were  liquid,  the  pupils  dilated;  her  whole 
appearance  was  one  of  suppressed  excitement. 
She  had  chagrin,  not  only  because  she  felt  that 
her  appearance  was  unattractive,  but  because  it 
seemed  to  her  that  her  face  kept  no  secrets.  Had 
she  seen  it  as  that  of  another,  Jenny  would  un- 
erringly have  read  its  painful  message. 

"Eh,  dear,"  she  said  aloud.  "You  give  your- 
self away,  old  sport!  Don't  you,  now!"  The 
mirrored  head  shook  in  disparaging  admission  of 
its  own  shortcoming.  Jenny  bent  nearer,  meet- 
ing the  eyes  with  a  clear  stare.  There  were 
wretched  lines  about  her  mouth.  For  the  first 
time  in  her  life  she  had  a  horrified  fear  of  grow- 
ing older.  It  was  as  though,  when  she  shut  her 
eyes,  she  saw  herself  as  an  old  woman.  She  felt 
a  curious  stab  at  her  heart. 

Keith,  returning,  found  Jenny  still  before  the 
mirror,  engaged  in  this  unsparing  scrutiny;  and, 
laughing  gently,  he  caught  her  elbow  with  his 
fingers.  In  the  mirror  their  glances  met.  At  his 
touch  Jenny  thrilled,  and  unconsciously  leaned 
towards  him.  From  the  mirrored  glance  she 


142  NOCTURNE 

turned  questioningly,  to  meet  upon  his  face  a 
beaming  expression  of  tranquil  enjoyment  that 
stimulated  her  to  candid  remark.  Somehow  it 
restored  some  of  her  lost  ease  to  be  able  to  speak  so. 

1  'I  look  funny,  don't  I?"  She  appealed  to  his 
judgment.  Keith  bent  nearer,  as  for  more  de- 
tailed examination,  retaining  hold  upon  her  elbow. 
His  face  was  tantalisingly  close  to  hers,  and 
Jenny  involuntarily  turned  her  head  away,  not 
coquettishly,  but  through  embarrassment  at  a 
mingling  of  desire  and  timidity. 

"Is  that  the  word?"  he  asked.  "You  look  all 
right,  my  dear." 

My  dear !  She  knew  that  the  words  meant  more 
to  her  than  they  did  to  him,  so  carelessly  were 
they  uttered;  but  they  sent  a  shock  through  her. 
How  Jenny  wished  that  she  might  indeed  be  dear 
to  Keith !  He  released  her,  and  she  followed  him, 
laden,  backwards  and  forwards  until  the  table 
was  cleared.  Then  he  unscrewed  the  table  legs, 
and  the  whole  thing  came  gently  away  in  his 
hands.  There  appeared  four  small  brass  sockets 
imbedded  in  the  carpet's  deep  pile ;  and  the  centre 
of  the  room  was  clear.  By  the  same  dexterous 
use  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  cabin's  mechan- 
ism, Keith  unfastened  one  of  the  settees,  and 
wheeled  it  forward  so  that  it  stood  under  the 
light,  and  in  great  comfort  for  the  time  when 
they  should  sit  to  hear  his  story. 


MORTALS  143 

"Now!"  he  said.  "We'll  have  a  breather  on 
deck  to  clear  your  old  head." 

iii 

By  this  time  the  moon  was  silvering  the  river, 
riding  high  above  the  earth,  serenely  a  thing  of 
eternal  mystery  to  her  beholders.  With  the  pass- 
ing of  clouds  and  the  deepening  of  the  night, 
those  stars  not  eclipsed  by  the  moon  shone  like 
swarmed  throbbing  points  of  silver.  They  seemed 
more  remote,  as  though  the  clearer  air  had  driven 
them  farther  off.  Jenny,  her  own  face  and  throat 
illumined,  stared  up  at  the  moon,  marvelling; 
and  then  she  turned,  without  speaking,  to  the 
black  shadows  and  the  gliding,  silent  water. 
Upon  every  hand  was  the  chequer  of  contrast, 
beautiful  to  the  eye,  and  haunting  'to  the 
spirit.  A  soft  wind  stirred  her  hair  and  made 
her  bare  her  teeth  in  pleasure  at  the  sweet  contact. 

Keith  led  her  to  the  wide  wooden  seat  which 
ran  by  the  side  of  the  deck,  and  they  sat  together 
there.  The  noise  of  the  city  was  dimmer;  the 
lamps  were  yellowed  in  the  moon's  whiter  light; 
there  were  occasional  movements  upon  the  face 
of  the  river.  A  long  way  away  they  heard  a 
sharp  panting  as  a  motor  boat  rushed  through 
the  water,  sending  out  a  great  surging  wave  that 
made  all  other  craft  rise  and  fall  and  sway  as  the 
river's  agitation  subsided.  The  boat  came  nearer, 


144  NOCTURNE 

a  coloured  light  showing;  and  presently  it 
hastened  past,  a  moving  thing  with  a  muffled  fig- 
ure at  its  helm;  and  the  Minerva  rocked  gently 
almost  until  the  sound  of  the  motor  boat's  tuff- 
tuff  had  been  lost  in  the  general  noise  of  London. 
Nearer  at  hand,  above  them,  Jenny  could  hear  the 
clanging  of  tram-gongs  and  the  clatter  and  slow 
boom  of  motor  omnibuses ;  but  these  sounds  were 
mellowed  by  the  evening,  and  although  they  were 
near  enough  to  be  comforting  they  were  too  far 
away  to  interrupt  this  pleasant  solitude  with 
Keith.  The  two  of  them  sat  in  the  shadow,  and 
Jenny  craned  to  hear  the  chuckle  of  the  water 
against  the  yacht's  sides.  It  was  a  beautiful  mo- 
ment in  her  life.  .  .  .  She  gave  a  little  moan, 
and  swayed  against  Keith,  her  delight  succeeded 
by  deadly  languor. 

iv 

So  for  a  moment  they  sat,  Keith's  arm  around 
her  shoulders;  and  then  Jenny  moved  so  as  to 
free  herself.  She  was  restless  and  unhappy  again, 
her  nerves  on  edge.  The  moon  and  the  water, 
which  had  soothed  her,  were  now  an  irritation. 
Keith  heard  her  breath  come  and  go,  quickly, 
heavily. 

"Sorry,  Jenny,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  puzzled 
apology.  She  caught  his  fallen  hand,  pressing 
it  eagerly. 


MORTALS  145 

"It's  nothing.  Only  that  minute.  Like  some- 
body walking  on  my  grave." 

"You're  cold.  We'll  go  down  to  the  cabin 
again."  He  was  again  cool  and  unembarrassed. 
Together  they  stood  upon  the  deck  in  the  moon- 
light, while  the  water  flowed  rapidly  beneath  them 
and  the  night's  mystery  emphasised  their  remote- 
ness from  the  rest  of  the  world.  They  had  no 
part,  at  this  moment,  in  the  general  life ;  but  were 
solitary,  living  only  to  themselves.  .  .  . 

Keith's  arm  was  about  her  as  they  descended; 
but  he  let  it  drop  as  they  stood  once  more  in 
the  golden-brown  cabin.  "Sit  here!"  He 
plumped  a  cushion  for  her,  and  Jenny  sank  into 
an  enveloping  softness  that  rose  about  her  as 
water  might  have  done,  so  that  she  might  have 
been  alarmed  if  Keith  had  not  been  there 
looking  down  with  such  an  expression  of 
concern. 

"I'm  really  all  right,"  she  told  him,  reassur- 
ingly. "Miserable  for  a  tick — that's  all!" 

"Sure?"  He  seemed  genuinely  alarmed,  scan- 
ning her  face.  She  had  again  turned  sick  and 
faint,  so  that  her  knees  were  without  strength. 
Was  he  sincere?  If  only  she  could  have  been 
sure  of  him.  It  meant  everything  in  the  world  to 
her.  If  only  Keith  would  say  he  loved  her:  if 
only  he  would  kiss  her !  He  had  never  done  that. 
The  few  short  days  of  their  earlier  comradeship 


146  NOCTURNE 

had  been  full  of  delight;  he  had  taken  her  arm, 
he  had  even  had  her  in  his  arms  during  a  wild 
bluster  of  wind;  but  always  the  inevitable  kiss 
had  been  delayed,  had  been  averted;  and  only 
her  eager  afterthoughts  had  made  romance  of 
their  meagre  acquaintance.  Yet  now,  when  they 
were  alone,  together,  when  every  nerve  in  her 
body  seemed  tense  with  desire  for  him,  he  was 
somehow  aloof — not  constrained  (for  then  she 
would  have  been  happy,  at  the  profoundly  affect- 
ing knowledge  that  she  had  carried  the  day),  but 
unsympathetically  and  unlovingly  at  ease.  She 
could  not  read  his  face:  in  his  manner  she  read 
only  a  barren  kindness  that  took  all  and  gave 
nothing.  If  he  didn't  love  her  she  need  not  have 
come.  It  would  have  been  better  to  go  on  as 
she  had  been  doing,  dreaming  of  him  until — until 
what?  Jenny  sighed  at  the  grey  vision.  Only 
hunger  had  driven  her  to  his  side  on  this  evening 
—the  imperative  hunger  of  her  nature  upon  which 
Keith  had  counted.  He  had  been  sure  she  would 
come — that  was  unforgivable.  He  had  welcomed 
her  as  he  might  have  welcomed  a  man;  but  as 
he  might  also  have  welcomed  any  man  or  woman 
who  would  have  relieved  his  loneliness  upon  the 
yacht.  Not  a  loved  friend.  Jenny,  with  her 
brain  restored  by  the  gentle  breeze  to  its  normal 
quickness  of  action,  seemed  dartingly  to  seek  in 
every  direction  for  reassurance!  and  she  found 


MORTALS  147 

in  everything  no  single  tone  or  touch  to  feed  her 
insatiable  greed  for  tokens  of  his  love.  Oh,  but 
she  was  miserable  indeed — disappointed  in  her 
dearest  and  most  secret  aspirations.  He  was  per- 
haps afraid  that  she  wanted  to  attach  herself 
to  him?  If  that  were  so,  why  couldn't  he  be 
honest,  and  tell  her  so?  That  was  all  she  wanted 
from  him.  She  wanted  only  the  truth.  She  felt 
she  could  bear  anything  but  this  kindness,  this 
charming  detached  thought  for  her.  He  was  giv- 
ing her  courtesy  when  all  she  needed  was  that 
his  passion  should  approach  her  own.  And  when 
she  should  have  been  strong,  mistress  of  herself, 
she  was  weak  as  water.  Her  strength  was  turned, 
her  self-confidence  mocked  by  his  bearing.  She 
trembled  with  the  recurring  vehemence  of  her 
love,  that  had  been  fed  upon  solitude,  upon  the 
dreariness  in  which  she  spent  her  mere  calendared 
days.  Her  eyes  were  sombrely  glowing,  dark  with 
pain;  and  Keith  was  leaning  towards  her  as  he 
might  have  leant  towards  any  girl  who  was  half 
fainting.  She  could  have  cried,  but  that  she  was 
too  proud  to  ciy.  She  was  not  Emmy,  who  cried. 
She  was  Jenny  Blanchard,  who  had  come  upon 
this  fool's  trip  because  a  force  stronger  than  her 
pride  had  bidden  her  to  forsake  all  but  the  im- 
pulse of  her  love.  And  Keith,  secure  and  con- 
fident, was  coolly,  as  it  were,  disentangling  him- 
self from  the  claim  she  had  upon  him  by 


148  NOCTURNE 

virtue  of  her  love.  It  seemed  to  Jenny  that  he 
was  holding  her  at  a  distance.  Nothing  could 
have  hurt  her  more.  It  shamed  her  to  think  that 
Keith  might  suspect  her  honesty  and  her  unsel- 
fishness. When  she  had  thought  of  nothing  but 
her  love  and  the  possibility  of  his  own. 

She  read  now,  in  this  moment  of  descent  into 
misery,  a  dreadful  blunder  made  by  her  own  over- 
weening eagerness.  She  saw  Keith,  alone,  think- 
ing that  he  would  be  at  a  loss  to  fill  his  time, 
suddenly  remembering  her,  thinking  in  a  rather 
contemptuous  way  of  their  days  together,  and 
supposing  that  she  would  do  as  well  as  another 
for  an  hour's  talk  to  keep  him  from  a  stagnant 
evening.  If  that  were  so,  good-bye  to  her  dreams. 
If  she  were  no  more  to  him  than  that  there  was 
no  hope  left  in  her  life.  For  Keith  might  ply  from 
port  to  port,  seeing  in  her  only  one  girl  for  his 
amusement;  but  he  had  spoilt  her  for  another 
man.  No  other  man  could  escape  the  withering 
comparison  with  Keith.  To  Jenny  he  was  a  king 
among  men,  incomparable ;  and  if  he  did  not  love 
her,  then  the  proud  Jenny  Blanchard,  who  un- 
hesitatingly saw  life  and  character  with  an  im- 
movable reserve,  was  the  merest  trivial  legend  of 
Kennington  Park.  She  was  like  every  other  girl,  \ 
secure  in  her  complacent  belief  that  she  could  win 
love — until  the  years  crept  by,  and  no  love  came, 
and  she  must  eagerly  seek  to  accept  whatever 


MORTALS  149 

travesty  of  love  sidled  within  the  radius  of  her 
attractiveness. 

Suddenly  Jenny  looked  at  Keith. 

1  'Better  now,"  she  said  harshly.  "You'll  have 
to  buck  up  with  your  tale — won't  you!  If  you're 
going  to  get  it  out  before  I  have  to  toddle  home 
again. ' ' 

' '  Oh, ' '  said  Keith,  in  a  confident  tone.  '  *  You  're 
here  now.  You'll  stay  until  I've  quite  fin- 
ished." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Jenny  sharply. 
"Don't  talk  rubbish!" 

Keith  held  up  a  warning  forefinger.  He 
stretched  his  legs  and  drew  from  his  pocket  a 
stout  pipe. 

"I  mean  what  I  say."  He  looked  sideways  at 
her.  "Don't  be  a  fool,  Jenny." 

Her  heart  was  chilled  at  the  menace  of  his 
words  no  less  than  by  the  hardness  of  his 
voice. 

v 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about, 
Keith;  but  you'll  take  me  back  to  the  steps  when 
I  say,"  she  said.  Keith  filled  his  pipe.  "I  sup- 
pose you  think  it's  funny  to  talk  like  that." 
Jenny  looked  straight  in  front  of  her,  and  her 
heart  was  fluttering.  It  was  not  her  first  tremor ; 
but  she  was  deeply  agitated.  Keith,  with  a  look 


150  NOCTURNE  N 

that  was  almost  a  smile,  finished  loading  the  pipe 
and  struck  a  match.  He  then  settled  himself 
comfortably  at  her  side. 

"Don't  be  a  juggins,  Jenny,"  he  remarked,  in  a 
dispassionate  way  that  made  her  feel  helpless. 

"Sorry,"  she  said  quickly.  "I've  got  the 
jumps.  I've  had  awful  rows  to-night  .  .  .  be- 
fore coming  out." 

'  *  Tell  me  about  them, ' '  Keith  urged.  '  *  Get  'em 
off  your  chest."  She  shook  her  head.  Oh  no, 
she  wanted  something  from  him  very  different 
from  such  kindly  sympathy. 

"Only  make  it  worse,"  she  claimed.  "Drives 
it  in  more.  Besides,  I  don't  want  to.  I  want  to 
hear  about  you." 

1  *  Oh,  me ! "  he  made  a  laughing  noise.  '  *  There 's 
nothing  to  tell." 

"You  said  you  would."  Jenny  was  alarmed 
at  his  perverseness ;  but  they  were  not  estranged 
now. 

Keith  was  smiling  rather  bitterly  at  his  own 
thoughts,  it  seemed. 

"I  wonder  why  it  is  women  want  to  know  such 
a  lot,"  he  said,  drowsily. 

"All  of  them?"  she  sharply  countered.  "I 
suppose  you  ought  to  know." 

"You  look  seedy  still.  .  .  .  Are  you  really 
feeling  better?"  Jenny  took  no  notice.  "Well, 
yes:  I  suppose  all  of  them.  They  all  want  to 


MORTALS  151 

take  possession  of  you.  They're  never  satisfied 
with  what  they've  got." 

"Perhaps  they  haven't  got  anything,"  Jenny 
said.  And  after  a  painful  pause:  "Oh,  well: 
I  shall  have  to  be  going  home."  She  wearily 
moved,  in  absolute  despair,  perhaps  even  with 
the  notion  of  rising,  though  her  mind  was  in 
turmoil. 

"Jenny!"  He  held  her  wrist,  preventing  any 
further  movement.  He  was  looking  at  her  with 
an  urgent  gaze.  Then,  violently,  with  a  rapid 
motion,  he  came  nearer,  and  forced  his  arm  behind 
Jenny's  waist,  drawing  her  close  against  his 
breast,  her  face  averted  until  their  cheeks  touched, 
when  the  life  seemed  to  go  out  of  Jenny's  body 
and  she  moved  her  head  quickly  in  resting  it  on 
his  shoulder,  Keith's  face  against  her  hair,  and 
their  two  hearts  beating  quickly.  It  was  done  in 
a  second,  and  they  sat  so,  closely  embraced,  with- 
out speech.  Still  Jenny's  hands  were  free,  as  if 
they  had  been  lifeless.  Time  seemed  to  stand  still, 
and  every  noise  to  stop,  during  that  long  moment. 
And  in  her  heart  Jenny  was  saying  over  and  over, 
utterly  hopeless,  "It's  no  good;  it's  no  good; 
it's  no  good.  .  .  ."  Wretchedly  she  attempted 
to  press  herself  free,  her  elbow  against  Keith's 
breast.  She  could  not  get  away;  but  each  flying 
instant  deepened  her  sense  of  bitter  failure. 

"It's  no  use,"  she  said  at  last,  in  a  dreadful 


152  NOCTURNE 

murmur.  "You  don't  want  me  a  bit.  Far  better 
let  me  go." 

Keith  loosed  his  hold,  and  she  sat  away  from 
him  with  a  little  sigh  that  was  almost  a  shudder. 
Her  hands  went  as  if  by  instinct  to  her  hair, 
smoothing  it.  Another  instinct,  perhaps,  made 
her  turn  to  him  with  the  ghost  of  a  reassuring 
smile. 

"Silly,  weVe  been,"  she  said,  huskily.  "I've 
been  thinking  about  you  all  this  time ;  and  this  is 
the  end  of  it.  Well,  I  was  a  fool  to  come.  ..." 
She  sat  up  straight,  away  from  the  back  of  the 
settee;  but  she  did  not  look  at  Keith.  She  was 
looking  at  nothing.  Only  in  her  mind  was  going 
on  the  tumult  of  merciless  self -judgment.  Sud- 
denly her  composure  gave  way  and  she  was  again 
in  his  arms,  not  crying,  but  straining  him  to  her. 
And  Keith  was  kissing  her,  blessed  kisses  upon 
her  soft  lips,  as  if  he  truly  loved  her  as  she  had 
all  this  time  hoped.  She  clung  to  him  in  a  stupor. 


CHAPTER  VIII:  PENALTIES 


iOOR  old  Jenny,"  Keith  was  saying,  strok- 
ing her  arm  and  holding  his  cheek  against 
hers. 

''You  don't  want  me  ..."  groaned  Jenny. 

"Yes." 

"I  can  tell  you  don't.  You  don't  mean  it. 
D'you  think  I  can't  tell!" 

Keith  raised  a  finger  and  lightly  touched  her 
hair.  He  rubbed  her  cheek  with  his  own,  so  that 
she  could  feel  the  soft  bristles  of  his  shaven  beard. 
And  he  held  her  more  closely  within  the  circle  of 
his  arm. 

"Because  I'm  clumsy?"  he  breathed.  "You 
know  too  much,  Jenny." 

"No:  I  can  tell.  ...  It's  all  the  difference 
in  the  world." 

"Well,  then ;  how  many  others  have  kissed  you? 
.  .  .  Eh?" 

"Keith!"  Jenny  struggled  a  little.  "Let  me 
go  now." 

*  *  How  many  ? ' '  Keith  kissed  her  cheek.  '  *  Tell 
the  whole  dreadful  truth." 

"If  I  asked  you  how  many  girls  .    .    .  what 

1S3 


154  NOCTURNE 

would  you  say  then!"  Jenny's  sombre  eyes  were 
steadily  watching  him,  prying  into  the  secrets 
of  his  own.  He  gave  a  flashing  smile,  that  lighted 
up  his  brown  face. 

*  *  We  're  both  jealous, ' '  he  told  her.  ' '  Isn  't  that 
what's  the  matter?" 

"You  don't  trust  me.  You  don't  want  me. 
You're  only  teasing."  With  a  vehement  effort 
she  recovered  some  of  her  self-control.  Pride 
was  again  active,  the  dominant  emotion.  "So 
am  I  only  teasing,"  she  concluded.  "You're  too 
jolly  pleased  with  yourself." 

"How  did  you  know  I  was  clumsy?"  Keith 
asked.  "I  shall  bite  your  old  face.  I  shall  nibble 
it  .  .  .  as  if  I  was  a  horse  .  .  .  and  you  were  a 
bit  of  sugar.  Fancy  Jenny  going  home  with  half 
a  face!"  He  laughed  excitedly  at  his  forced 
pleasantry,  and  the  sound  of  his  laugh  was  music 
to  Jenny's  ears.  He  was  excited.  He  was  moved. 
Quickly  the  melancholy  pressed  back  upon  her 
after  this  momentary  surcease.  He  was  excited 
because  she  was  in  his  arms — not  because  he  loved 
her. 

"Why  did  you  send  for  me?"  she  suddenly 
said.  "In  your  letter  you  said  you'd  explain 
everything.  Then  you  said  you'd  tell  me  about 
yourself.  You've  done  nothing  but  tease  all  the 
time.  .  .  .  Are  you  afraid,  or  what?  Keith, 
dear:  you  don't  know  what  it  means  to  me.  If 


PENALTIES  155 

you  don't  want  me — let  me  go.  I  oughtn't  to 
have  come.  I  was  silly  to  come;  but  I  had  to. 
But  if  you  only  wanted  somebody  to  tease  ... 
one  of  the  others  would  have  done  quite  as 
well." 

Again  the  smile  spread  across  Keith's  face, 
brightening  his  eyes  and  making  his  teeth  glisten. 

"I  said  you  were  jealous,"  he  murmured  in  her 
ear.  ' '  One  of  the  others,  indeed !  Jenny,  there 's 
no  other — nobody  like  you,  my  swee,t.  There 
couldn't  be.  Do  you  think  there  could  be?" 

"Nobody  such  a  fool,"  Jenny  said,  miserably. 

"Who's  a  fool?  You!"  He  seemed  to  think 
for  a  moment;  and  then  went  on:  "Well,  I've 
told  you  I  planned  the  supper.  .  .  .  That  was 
true." 

"Let  me  go.  I'm  getting  cramped."  Jenny 
drew  away;  but  he  followed,  holding  her  less 
vigorously,  but  in  no  way  releasing  her.  "No: 
really  let  me  go."  Keith  shook  his  head. 

"I  shan't  let  you  go,"  he  said.  "Make  your- 
self comfortable." 

"I  only  make  myself  miserable."  Jenny  felt 
her  hair,  which  was  loosened.  Her  cheeks  were 
hot. 

"Are  you  sorry  you  came?" 

"Yes."  Keith  pressed  closer  to  her,  stifling 
her  breath.  She  saw  his  brown  cheeks  for  an  in- 
stant before  she  was  again  enveloped  in  his  strong 


156  NOCTURNE 

embrace;   and   then   she   heard   a   single   word 
breathed  in  her  ear. 

"Liar!"  said  Keith.  In  a  moment  he  added: 
"Sorry  be  pole-axed." 

ii 

It  was  the  second  time  in  that  evening  that 
Jenny  had  been  accused  of  lying;  and  when  the 
charge  had  been  brought  by  Alf  she  had  flamed 
with  anger.  Now,  however,  she  felt  no  anger. 
She  felt  through  her  unhappiness  a  dim  motion 
of  exulting  joy.  Half  suffocated,  she  was  yet 
thrilled  with  delight  in  Keith's  strength,  with 
belief  in  his  love  because  it  was  ardently  shown. 
Strength  was  her  god.  She  worshipped  strength 
as  nearly  all  women  worship  it.  And  to  Jenny 
strength,  determination,  manhood,  were  Keith's 
attributes.  She  loved  him  for  being  strong;  she 
found  in  her  own  weakness  the  triumph  of  power- 
lessness,  of  humiliation. 

"You're  suffocating  me,"  she  warned  him, 
panting. 

"D'you  love  me  a  little?" 

"Yes.    A  little." 

"A  lot?  Say  you  love  me  a  lot!  And  you're 
glad  you  came  ..." 

Jenny  held  his  face  to  hers,  and  kissed  him 
passionately. 

"Dear!"  she  fiercely  whispered. 


PENALTIES  157 

Keith  slowly  released  her,  and  they  both 
laughed  breathlessly,  with  brimming,  glowing 
eyes.  He  took  her  hand,  still  smiling  and  watch- 
ing her  face. 

"Old  silly,"  Keith  murmured.  "Aren't  you 
an  old  silly!  Eh?" 

"So  you  say.  You  ought  to  know.  ...  I 
suppose  I  am  .  .  . " 

"But  a  nice  old  silly  .  .  .  And  a  good  old  girl 
to  come  to-night." 

"But  then  you  knew  I  should  come,"  urged 
Jenny,  drily,  f rowningly  regarding  him. 

"You  can't  forgive  that,  can  you!  You  think 
I  ought  to  have  come  grovelling  to  you.  It's  not 
proper  to  ask  you  to  come  to  me  ...  to  believe 
you  might  come  ...  to  have  everything  ready 
in  case  you  might  come.  Prude,  Jenny!  That's 
what  you  are. ' ' 

"A  prude  wouldn't  have  come." 

"That's  all  you  know,"  said  Keith,  teasingly. 
"She'd  have  come — out  of  curiosity;  but  she'd 
have  made  a  fuss.  That's  what  prudes  are. 
That's  what  they  do." 

"Well,  I  expect  you  know,"  Jenny  admitted, 
sarcastically.  The  words  wounded  her  more  than 
they  wounded  him.  Where  Keith  laughed,  Jenny 
quivered.  "You  don't  know  what  it  means  to 
me—  '  she  began  again,  and  checked  her  too 
unguarded  tongue. 


158  NOCTURNE 

' '  To  come  ? ' '  He  bent  towards  her.  '  *  Of  course, 
it's  marvellous  to  me!  Was  that  what  you 
meant?" 

"No.  To  think  .  .  .  other  girls  .  .  ."  She 
could  not  speak  distinctly. 

"Other  girls?"  Keith  appeared  astonished. 
'  *  Do  you  really  believe  .  .  . "  He  too  paused. 
"No  other  girls  come  on  this  yacht  to  see  me. 
I've  known  other  girls.  I've  made  love  to  other 
girls — what  man  hasn't?  You  don't  get  to  my 
age  without  ..." 

"Without  what?"  Jenny  asked  coolly. 

"I'm  not  pretending  anything  to  you.  I'm 
thirty  and  a  bit  over.  A  man  doesn't  get  to  my 
age  .  .  .  No  man  does,  without  having  been 
made  a  fool  of." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind  that,"  Jenny  said  sharply. 
"It's  the  girls  you've  fooled." 

"Don't  you  believe  it,  Jenny.  They've  always 
been  wiser  than  me.  Say  they've  known  a  bit 
more.  You're  different  ..."  Jenny  shook  her 
head,  sighing. 

"I  bet  they've  all  been  that,"  she  slowly  said. 
"Till  the  next  one."  The  old  unhappiness  had 
returned,  gripping  her  heart.  She  no  longer 
looked  at  him,  but  stared  away,  straight  in  front 
of  her. 

"Well,  what  if  they  had  all  been  different?" 
Keith  persisted.  "Supposing  I  were  to  tell  you 


PENALTIES  159 

about  them.  Each  one  .  .  .  There 's  no  time  for 
it,  Jenny.  You'll  have  to  take  my  word  for  it. 
You'll  do  that  if  you  want  to.  If  you  want  to 
believe  in  me.  Do  you!" 

"Of  course  I  do ! "  Jenny  blazed.  * ' I  can 't !  Be 
different  if  I  was  at  home.  But  I'm  here,  and 
you  knew  I'd  come.  D'you  see  what  I  mean?" 

"You're  not  in  a  trap,  old  girl,"  said  Keith. 
"You  can  go  home  this  minute  if  you  think  you 
are. ' '  His  colour  also  rose.  '  *  You  make  too  much 
fuss.  You  want  me  to  tell  you  good  fat  lies  to 
save  your  face.  Don't  be  a  juggins,  Jenny !  Show 
your  spirit!  Jenny!" 

Keith  still  held  her  hand.  He  drew  it  towards 
him,  and  Jenny  was  made  to  lean  by  his  sudden 
movement.  He  slipped  his  arm  again  round  her. 
Jenny  did  not  yield  herself.  He  was  conscious  of 
rebuff,  although  she  did  not  struggle. 

"You  want  me  to  trust  you  blindfold,"  she  said 
in  a  dreary  voice.  "It's  not  good  enough,  Keith. 
Really  it  isn't!  When  you  don't  trust  me.  You 
sent  for  me,  and  I  came.  As  soon  as  I  was  here 
you  .  .  .  you  were  as  beastly  as  you  could  be 
.  .  . "  Her  voice  trembled. 

"Not  really  beastly  .  .  ."  Keith  urged,  and 
his  coaxing  tone  and  concerned  expression  shook 
her.  "Nice  beastly,  eh!" 

"You  weren't  nice.  You  weren't.  .  ."  Jenny 
hesitated.  "You  didn't  .  .  .  you  weren't  nice. 


M 


160  NOCTURNE 

"I  didn't  want  to  frighten  you." 

Jenny  drew  herself  up,  frantically  angry. 

"Now  who's  lying!"  she  savagely  cried,  and 
put  her  hands  to  disengage  herself.  "Oh  Keith, 
I'm  so  sick  of  it!"  He  held  her  more  tightly. 
All  her  efforts  were  unavailing  against  that  slowly 
increased  pressure  from  his  strong  arms. 

"Listen,  Jenny,"  Keith  said.  "I  love  you. 
That 's  that.  I  wanted  to  see  you  more  than  any- 
thing on  earth.  I  wanted  to  kiss  you.  Good  God, 
Jen.  .  .  .  D'you  think  you're  the  easiest  person 
in  the  world  to  manage?" 

iii 

The  bewilderment  that  succeeded  clove  the  si- 
lence. Jenny  gasped  against  her  will. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  demanded. 

"You  think  I'm  looking  on  you  as  cheap  .  .  . 
when  I'm  in  an  absolute  funk  of  you!"  Keith 
cried. 

"0-oh!"  Her  exclamation  was  incredulity  it- 
self. Keith  persisted  warmly: 

"I'm  not  lying.  It's  all  true.  And  you're  a 
termagant,  Jenny.  That's  what  you  are.  You 
want  it  all  your  own  way!  Anything  that  goes 
wrong  is  my  fault — not  yours!  You  don't  think 
there's  anything  that's  your  fault.  It's  all  mine. 
But,  my  good  girl,  that's  ricidulous.  What  d'you 
think  I  know  about  you?  Eh?  Nothing  what- 


PENALTIES  161 

ever!  Absolutely  nothing!  You  think  you're  as 
clear  as  day!  You're  not.  You're  a  dark  horse. 
I'm  afraid  of  you — afraid  of  your  temper  .  .  . 
your  pride.  You  won't  see  that.  You  think  it's 
my  fault  that  ..."  Keith's  excitement  almost 
convinced  Jenny. 

"Shouting  won't  do  any  good,"  she  said,  deeply 
curious  and  overwhelmed  by  her  bewilderment. 

"Pull  yourself  together,  Jenny!"  he  urged. 
"Look  at  it  from  my  side  if  you  can.  Try! 
Imagine  I've  got  a  side,  that  is.  And  now  I'll 
tell  you  something  about  myself  ...  no  lies; 
and  you'll  have  to  make  the  best  of  the  truth. 
The  Truth!"  Laughing,  he  kissed  her;  and 
Jenny,  puzzled  but  intrigued,  withheld  her  indig- 
nation in  order  to  listen  to  the  promised  account. 
Keith  began.  "Well,  Jenny:  I  told  you  I  was 
thirty.  I'm  thirty-one  in  a  couple  of  months.  I'll 
tell  you  the  date,  and  you  can  work  me  a  sampler. 
And  I  was  born  in  a  place  you've  never  set  eyes 
on — and  I  hope  you  never  will  set  eyes  on  it.  I 
was  born  in  Glasgow.  And  there's  a  smelly  old 
river  there,  called  the  Clyde,  where  they  launch 
big  ships  .  .  .  a  bit  bigger  than  the  Minerva.  The 
Minerva  was  built  in  Holland.  Well,  my  old 
father  was  a  tough  old  chap — not  a  Scotchman, 
though  my  mother  was  Scotch — with  a  big  busi- 
ness in  Glasgow.  He  was  as  rich  as — well,  richer 
than  anybody  you  ever  met.  Work  that  out! 


162  NOCTURNE 

And  he  was  as  tough  as  a  Glasgow  business  man. 
They're  a  special  kind.  And  I  was  his  little  boy. 
He  had  no  other  little  boys.  You  interested?" 

Jenny  nodded  sharply,  her  breast  against  his, 
so  that  she  felt  every  breath  he  drew. 

"Yes :  well,  my  father  was  so  keen  that  I  should 
grow  up  into  a  Glasgow  business  man  that  he 
nearly  killed  me.  He  hated  me.  Simply  because 
when  I  did  anything  it  was  always  something 
away  from  the  pattern — the  plan.  D'you  see? 
And  he  'd  nearly  beat  my  head  in  each  time.  .  .  . 
Yes,  wasn't  it!  .  .  .  Well,  when  I  was  ten  he  and 
I  had  got  into  such  a  way  that  we  were  sworn 
enemies.  He'd  got  a  strong  will;  but  so  had  I, 
even  though  I  was  such  a  kid.  And  I  wouldn't 
— I  couldn't — do  what  he  told  me  to.  And  when 
I  was  thirteen,  I  ran  away.  I'd  always  loved  the 
river,  and  boats,  and  so  on ;  and  I  ran  away  from 
my  old  father.  And  he  nearly  went  off  his  head 
,\.  .  and  he  brought  me  back.  Didn't  take  him 
long  to  find  me !  That  was  when  I  began  to  hate 
him.  I'd  only  been  afraid  of  him  before;  but 
I  was  growing  up.  Well,  he  put  me  to  a  school 
where  they  watched  me  all  the  time.  I  sulked, 
I  worked,  I  did  every  blessed  thing;  and  I  grew 
older  still,  and  more  afraid  of  my  father,  and 
somehow  less  afraid  of  him,  too.  I  got  a  sort  of 
horror  of  him.  I  hated  him.  And  when  he  said 
I'd  got  to  go  into  the  business  I  just  told  him  I'd 


PENALTIES  163 

see  him  damned  first.  That  was  when  he  first 
saw  that  you  can't  make  any  man  a  slave — not 
even  your  own  son — as  long  as  he's  got  enough 
to  eat.  He  coultin't  starve  me.  It's  starved  men 
who  are  made  slaves,  Jenny.  They've  got  no 
guts.  Well,  he  threw  me  over.  He  thought  I 
should  starve  myself  and  then  go  back  to  him, 
fawning.  I  didn't  go.  I  was  eighteen,  and  I  went 
on  a  ship.  I  had  two  years  of  it ;  and  my  father 
died.  I  got  nothing.  All  went  to  a  cousin.  I 
was  nobody ;  but  I  was  free,  freedom's  the  only 
thing  that's  worth  white  i^  flpff  fifo.  And  I  was 
Twenty  or  so.  It  was  then  that  I  picked  up  a  girl 
in  London  and  tried  to  keep  her — not  honest, 
but  straight  to  me.  I  looked  after  her  for  a 
year,  working  down  by  the  river.  But  it  was  no 
good.  She  went  off  with  other  men  because  I  got 
tired  of  her.  I  threw  her  over  when  I  found 
that  out.  I  mean,  I  told  her  she  could  stick  to  me 
or  let  me  go.  She  wanted  both.  I  went  to  sea 
again.  It  was  then  I  met  Templecombe.  I  met 
him  in  South  America,  and  we  got  very  pally. 
Then  I  came  back  to  England.  I  got  engaged  to 
a  girl — got  married  to  her  when  I  was  twenty- 
three  .  .  ." 

"Married!"  cried  Jenny,  pulling  herself  away. 
She  had  flushed  deeply.    Her  heart  was  like  lead. 

"I'm  not  lying.    You're  hearing  it  all.    And 
she's  dead." 


164  NOCTURNE 

"What  was  her  name?" 

"Adela.  .  .  .  She  was  little  and  fair;  and  she 
was  a  little  sport.  But  I  only  married  her  be- 
cause I  was  curious.  I  didn't  care  for  her.  In  a 
couple  of  months  I  knew  I'd  made  a  mistake.  She 
told  me  herself.  She  knew  much  more  than  I  did. 
She  was  older  than  I  was;  and  she  knew  a  lot 
for  her  age — about  men.  She'd  been  engaged  to 
one  and  another  since  she  was  fifteen;  and  in  ten 
years  you  get  to  know  a  good  deal.  I  think  she 
knew  everything  about  men — and  I  was  a  boy. 
She  died  two  years  ago.  Well,  after  I'd  been  with 
her  for  a  year  I  broke  away.  She  only  wanted  me 
to  fetch  and  carry.  .  .  .  She  'took  possession' 
of  me,  as  they  say.  I  went  into  partnership  with 
a  man  who  let  me  in  badly ;  and  Adela  went  back 
to  her  work  and  I  went  back  to  sea.  And  a  year 
later  I  went  to  prison  because  a  woman  I  was 
living  with  was  a  jealous  cat  and  got  the  blame 
thrown  on  to  me  for  something  I  knew  nothing 
about.  D'you  see?  Prison.  Never  mind  the 
details.  When  I  came  out  of  prison  I  was  going 
downhill  as  fast  as  a  barrel;  and  then  I  saw  an 
advertisement  of  Templecombe 's  for  a  skipper. 
I  saw  him,  and  told  him  all  about  myself ;  and  he 
agreed  to  overlook  my  little  time  in  prison  if  I 
signed  on  with  him  to  look  after  this  yacht. 
Now  you  see  I  haven't  got  a  very  good  record. 
I've  been  in  prison;  and  I've  lived  with  threp 


PENALTIES  165 

women;  and  I've  got  no  prospects  except  that 
I'm  a  good  sailor  and  know  my  job.  But  I  never 
did  what  I  was  sent  to  prison  for ;  and,  as  I  told 
you,  the  three  women  all  knew  more  than  I  did. 
I've  never  done  a  girl  any  harm  intentionally; 
and  the  last  of  them  belongs  to  six  years  ago. 
Since  then  I've  met  other  girls,  and  some  of  them 
have  run  after  me  because  I  was  a  sailor-man. 
They  do,  you  know.  You're  the  girl  I  love;  and 
I  want  you  to  remember  that  I  was  a  kid  when  I 
got  married.  That's  the  tale,  Jenny;  and  every 
word  of  it's  true.  And  now  what  d'you  think 
of  it?  Are  you  afraid  of  me  now?  Don't 
you  think  I'm  a  bit  of  a  fool?  Or  d'you 
think  I'm  the  sort  of  fellow  that  fools  the 
girls?" 

There  was  no  reply  to  his  question  for  a  long 
time;  until  Keith  urged  her  afresh. 

"What  I'm  wondering,"  said  Jenny,  in  a  slow 
and  rather  puzzled  way,  "is,  what  you'd  think  of 
me  if  I'd  lived  with  three  different  men.  Be- 
cause I'm  twenty-five,  you  know." 

iv 

It  might  have  checked  Keith  in  mid-career. 
His  tone  had  certainly  not  been  one  of  apology. 
But  along  with  a  natural  complacency  he  had  the 
honesty  that  sometimes  accompanies  success  in 
affairs. 


i66  NOCTURNE 

"Well,"  he  said  frankly,  "I  shouldn't  like  it, 
Jen." 

"How  d'you  think  I  like  it?" 

' '  D  'you  love  me  ?    Jenny,  dear ! ' ' 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  see  why  you  should  be 
different. ' ' 

"Nor  do  I.  I  am,  though.  I  wish  I  wasn't. 
Can  you  see  that?  Have  you  ever  wished  you 
weren't  yourself?  Of  course  you  have.  So  have 
I.  Have  you  had  men  running  after  you  all  the 
time?  Have  you  been  free  night  and  day,  with 
time  on  your  hands,  and  temptations  going.  You 
haven't.  You  don't  know  what  it  is.  You've  been 
at  home.  And  what's  more,  you've  been  tied  up 
because  .  .  .  because  people  think  girls  are 
safer  if  they're  tied  up." 

"Men  do!"  flashed  Jenny.  "They  like  to  have 
it  all  to  themselves." 

"Well,  if  you'd  ever  been  on  your  own  for  days 
together,  and  thinking  as  much  about  women  as 
all  young  men  do  .  .  .  " 

"I  wonder  if  I  should  boast  of  it,"  Jenny 
said  drily.  "To  a  girl  I  was  pretending  to 
love. ' ' 

Keith  let  his  arm  drop  from  her  waist.  He 
withdrew  it,  and  sighed.  Then  he  moved  forward 
upon  the  settee,  half  rising,  with  his  hands  upon 
his  knees. 

"Ah  well,  Jenny:  perhaps  I'd  better  be  tak- 


PENALTIES  167 

Ing  you  ashore,"  he  said  in  a  constrained,  exas- 
perated tone. 

"You  don't  care  if  you  break  my  heart,"  Jenny 
whispered.  "It's  all  one  to  you." 

"That's  simply  not  true.  .  .  .  But  it's  no  good 
discussing  it."  He  had  lost  his  temper,  and  was 
full  of  impatience.  He  sat  frowning,  disliking 
her,  with  resentment  and  momentary  aversion 
plainly  to  be  seen  in  his  bearing. 

"Just  because  I  don't  agree  that  it's  mighty 
kind  of  you  to  ...  condescend!"  Jenny  was 
choking.  "You  thought  I  should  jump  for  joy 
because  other  women  had  had  you.  I  don't  know 
what  sort  of  girl  you  thought  I  was." 

"Well,  I  thought  ...  I  thought  you  were  fond 
of  me,"  Keith  slowly  said,  making  an  effort  to 
speak  coldly.  "That  was  what  I  thought." 

"Thought  I'd  stand  anything!"  she  corrected. 
"And  fall  on  your  neck  into  the  bargain." 

"Jenny,  old  girl  .  .  .  That's  not  true.  But  I 
thought  you'd  understand  better  than  you've 
done.  I  thought  you'd  understand  winy  I  told 
you.  You  think  I  thought  I  was  so  sure  of  you. 
.  .  .  I  wish  you'd  try  to  see  a  bit  further."  He 
leaned  back  again,  not  touching  her,  but  deject- 
edly frowning ;  his  face  pale  beneath  the  tan.  His 
anger  had  passed  in  a  deeper  feeling.  "I  told 
you  because  you  wanted  to  know  about  me.  If  I'd 
been  the  sort  of  chap  you're  thinking  I  should 


168  NOCTURNE 

have  told  a  long  George  Washington  yarn,  pre- 
tending to  be  an  innocent  hero.  Well,  I  didn't. 
I'm  not  an  innocent  hero.  I'm  a  man  who's 
knocked  about  for  fifteen  years.  You've  got  the 
truth.  Women  don't  likejhe  truth.  __Th^y  WRT^ 
a  yarn.  A.yappy,  long,  sugar-coated  yarn,  and 
lots  of  protestations.  This  is  all  because  I  haven't 
asked  you  to  forgive  me — because  I  haven't  sworn 
not  to  do  it  again  if  only  you'll  forgive  me.  You 
want  to  see  yourself  forgiving  me.  On  a  pinnacle, 

.  .  .    Graciously  forgiving  me " 

"Oh,  you're  a  beast!"  cried  Jenny.  "Let  me 
go  home."  She  rose  to  her  feet,  and  stood  in 
deep  thought.  For  a  moment  Keith  remained 
seated:  then  he  too  rose.  They  did  not  look  at 
one  another,  but  with  bent  heads  continued  to 
reconsider  all  that  had  been  said. 

v 

"IVe  all  the  time  been  trying  to  show  you  I'm 
not  a  beast, ' '  Keith  urged  at  last.  ' '  But  a  human 
being.  It  takes  a  woman  to  be  something  above 
a  human  being."  He  was  sneering,  and  the  sneer 
chilled  her. 

"If  you'd  been  thinking  of  somebody  for 
months, ' '  she  began  in  a  trembling  tone.  '  *  Think- 
ing about  them  all  the  time,  living  on  it  day  after 
day  .  .  .  just  thinking  about  them  and  loving 
them  with  all  your  heart.  .  .  .  You  don't  know 


PENALTIES  169 

the  way  a  woman  does  it.  There's  nothing  else 
for  them  to  think  about.  I've  been  thinking  every 
minute  of  the  day — about  how  you  looked,  and 
what  you  said;  and  telling  myself — though  I 
didn't  believe  it — that  you  were  thinking  about 
me  just  the  same.  And  I've  been  planning  how 
you'd  look  when  I  saw  you  again,  and  what  we'd 
say  and  do.  .  .  .  You  don't  know  what  it's 
meant  to  me.  You've  never  dreamed  of  it.  And 
now  to  come  to-night — when  I  ought  to  be  at 
home  looking  after  my  dad.  And  to  hear  you 
talk  about  .  .  .  about  a  lot  of  other  girls  as  if  I 
was  to  take  them  for  granted.  Why,  how  do  I 
know  there  haven't  been  lots  of  others  since  you 
saw  me?" 

"Because  I  tell  you  it's  not  so,"  he  interposed. 
"Because  I've  been  thinking  of  yoii  all  the  time." 

"How  many  days  at  the  seaside  was  it? 
Three?" 

"It  was  enough  for  me.  It  was  enough  for 
you. ' ' 

"And  now  one  evening's  enough  for  both  of 
us,"  Jenny  cried  sharply.  "Too  much!" 

"You'll  cry  your  eyes  out  to-morrow,"  he 
warned. 

"Oh,  to-night!"  she  assured  him  recklessly. 

"Because  you  don't  love  me.  You  throw  all 
the  blame  on  me;  but  it's  your  own  pride  that's 
the  real  trouble,  Jenny.  You  want  to  come  round 


i7o  NOCTURNE 

gradually;  and  time's  too  short  for  it.  Remem- 
ber, I'm  away  again  to-morrow.  Did  you  forget 
that?" 

Jenny  shivered.  She  had  forgotten  everything 
but  her  grievance. 

"How  long  will  you  be  away!"  she  asked. 

"Three  months  at  least.  Does  it  matter?" 
She  reproached  his  bitterness  by  a  glance. 
"Jenny,  dear,"  he  went  on;  "when  time's  so 
short,  is  it  worth  while  to  quarrel?  You  see  what 
it  is:  if  you  don't  try  and  love  me  you'll  go 
home  unhappy,  and  we  shall  both  be  unhappy.  I 
told  you  I'm  not  a  free  man.  I'm  not.  I  want 
to  be  free.  I  want  to  be  free  all  the  time;  and 
I'm  tied  ..." 

"You're  still  talking  about  yourself,"  said 
Jenny,  scornfully,  on  the  verge  of  tears. 

vi 

Well,  they  had  both  made  their  unwilling  at- 
tempts at  reconciliation;  and  they  were  still 
further  estranged.  They  were  not  loving  one  an- 
other; they  were  just  quarrelsome  and  unhappy 
at  being  able  to  find  no  safe  road  of  compromise. 
Jenny  had  received  a  bitter  shock;  Keith,  with 
the  sense  that  she  was  judging  him  harshly,  was 
sullen  with  his  deeply  wounded  heart.  They  both 
felt  bruised  and  wretched,  and  deeply  ashamed 
and  offended.  And  then  they  looked  at  each 


PENALTIES  171 

other,  and  Jenny  gave  a  smothered  sob.  It  was 
all  that  was  needed;  for  Keith  was  beside  her 
in  an  instant,  holding  her  unyielding  body,  but 
murmuring  gentle  coaxing  words  into  her  ear.  In 
an  instant  more  Jenny  was  crying  in  real  earnest, 
buried  against  him;  and  her  tears  were  tears  of 
relief  as  much  as  of  pain. 


CHAPTER  IX:  WHAT  FOLLOWED 


THE  Minerva  slowly  and  gently  rocked  with 
the  motion  of  the  current.  The  stars  grew 
brighter.  The  sounds  diminished.  Upon  the  face 
of  the  river  lights  continued  to  twinkle,  catching 
and  mottling  the  wavelets.  The  cold  air  played 
with  the  water,  and  flickered  upon  the  Minerva's 
deck;  strong  enough  only  to  appear  mischievous, 
too  soft  and  wayward  to  make  its  presence  known 
to  those  within.  And  in  the  Minerva's  cabin,  set 
as  it  were  in  that  softly  rayed  room  of  old  gold 
and  golden  brown,  Jenny  was  clinging  to  Keith, 
snatching  once  again  at  precarious  happiness. 
Far  off,  in  her  aspirations,  love  was  desired  as 
synonymous  with  peace  and  contentment;  but  in 
her  heart  Jenny  had  no  such  pretence.  She  knew 
that  it  was  otherwise.  She  knew  that  passive 
domestic  enjoyment  would  not  bring  her  nature 
peace,  and  that  such  was  not  the  love  she  needed. 
Keith  alone  could  give  her  true  love.  And 
she  was  in  Keith's  arms,  puzzled  and  lethar- 
gic with  something  that  was  only  not  de- 
spair because  she  could  not  fathom  her  own 
feelings. 

172 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  173 

' '  Keith, ' '  she  said,  presently.  ' '  I  'm  sorry  to  be 
a  fool." 

"You're  not  a  fool,  old  dear,"  he  assured  her. 
11  But  I'm  a  beast." 

"Yes,  I  think  you  are,"  Jenny  acknowledged. 
There  was  a  long  pause.  She  tried  to  wipe  her 
eyes,  and  at  last  permitted  Keith  to  do  that  for 
her,  flinching  at  contact  with  the  handkerchief, 
but  aware  all  the  time  of  some  secret  joy.  When 
she  could  speak  more  calmly,  she  went  on :  * '  Sup- 
pose we  don't  talk  any  more  about  being  .  .  . 
what  we  are  .  .  .  and  forgiving,  and  all  that. 
"We  don't  mean  it.  We  only  say  it  .  .  . " 

"Well,  I  mean  it — about  being  a  beast,"  Keith 
said  humbly.  "That's  because  I  made  you  cry." 

"Well,"  said  Jenny,  agreeingly,  "you  can  be  a 
beast — I  mean,  think  you  are  one.  And  if  I'm 
miserable  I  shall  think  I've  been  a  fool.  But  we'll 
cut  out  about  forgiving.  Because  I  shall  never 
really  forgive  you.  I  couldn't.  It'll  always  be 
there,  till  I'm  an  old  woman " 

"Only  till  you're  happy,  dear,"  Keith  told  her. 
"That's  all  that  means." 

"I  can't  think  like  that.  I  feel  it's  in  my  bones. 
But  you're  going  away.  Where  are  you  going? 
D'you  know?  Is  it  far?" 

"We're  going  back  to  the  South.  Otherwise 
it's  too  cold  for  yachting.  And  Templecombe 
wants  to  keep  out  of  England  at  the  moment.  He 's 


174  NOCTURNE 

safe  on  the  yacht.  He  can't  be  got  at.  There's 
some  wretched  predatory  woman  of  title  pursuing 
him.  ..." 

"Here  .  .  .  here !"  cried  Jenny.  ' 'I  can't  un- 
derstand if  you  talk  pidgin-English,  Keith." 

"Well  ...  you  know  what  ravenous  means? 
Hungry.  And  a  woman  of  title — you  know  what 
a  lord  is.  ...  Well,  and  she's  chasing  about, 
dropping  little  scented  notes  at  every  street  cor- 
ner for  him." 

"Oh  they  are  awful!"  cried  Jenny.  "Coun- 
tesses! Always  in  the  divorce  court,  or  some- 
thing. Somebody  ought  to  stop  them.  They 
don't  have  countesses  in  America,  do  they?  Why 
don't  we  have  a  republic,  and  get  rid  of  them 
all?  If  they'd  got  the  floor  to  scrub  they  wouldn't 
have  time  to  do  anything  wrong." 

* '  True, ' '  said  Keith.  * '  True.  D  'you  like  scrub- 
bing floors  ? ' ' 

"No.  But  I  do  it.  And  keep  my  hands  nice, 
too. ' '  The  hands  were  inspected  and  approved. 

"But  then  you're  more  free  than  most  people," 
Keith  presently  remarked,  in  a  tone  of  envy. 

"Free!"  exclaimed  Jenny.  "Me!  In  the  mil- 
linery! When  I've  got  to  be  there  every  morn- 
ing at  nine  sharp  or  get  the  sack,  and  often, 
busy  times,  stick  at  it  till  eight  or  later,  for  a  few 
bob  a  week.  And  never  have  any  time  to  myself 
except  when  I'm  tired  out!  Who  gets  the  fun? 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  175 

Why,  it's  all  work,  for  people  like  me;  all  work 
for  somebody  else.  What  d'you  call  being  free? 
Aren't  they  free?" 

"Not  one.  They're  all  tied  up.  Templecombe's 
hawk  couldn't  come  on  this  yacht  without  a  troop 
of  friends.  They  can't  go  anywhere  they  like 
unless  it's  'the  thing'  to  be  done.  They  do  every- 
thing because  it 's  the  right  thing — because  if  they 
do  something  else  people  will  think  it's  odd — 
think  they're  odd.  And  they  can't  stand  that!" 

"Well,  but  Keith!    Who  is  it  that's  free?" 

"Nobody,"  he  said. 

"I  thought  perhaps  it  was  only  poor  people 
.  .  .  just  because  they  were  poor." 

"Well,  Jenny.  .  .  .  That's  so.  But  when 
people  needn't  do  what  they're  told  they  invent 
a  system  that  turns  them  into  slaves.  They  have 
a  religion,  or  they  run  like  the  Gadarine  swine 
into  a  fine  old  lather  and  pretend  that  every- 
body's got  to  do  the  same  for  some  reason  or 
other.  They  call  it  the  herd  instinct,  and  all  sorts 
of  names.  But  there's  nobody  who's  really  free. 
Most  of  them  don't  want  to  be.  If  they  were 
free  they  wouldn't  know  what  to  do.  If  their 
chains  were  off  they'd  fall  down  and  die.  They 
wouldn't  be  happy  if  there  wasn't  a  system  grind- 
ing them  as  much  like  each  other  as  it 
can." 

"But  why  not?    What's  the  good  of  being  alive 


176  NOCTURNE 

at  all  if  you've  got  to  do  everything  whether  you  \ 
want  to  do  it  or  not?    It's  not  sense!" 

"It's  fact,  though.  From  the  king  to  the  miner 
— all  a  part  of  a  big  complicated  machine  that's 
grinding  us  slowly  to  bits,  making  us  all  more 
and  more  wretched. ' ' 

"But  who  makes  it  like  that,  Keith?"  cried 
Jenny.  "Who  says  it's  to  be  so?" 

Keith  laughed  grimly. 

"Don't  let's  talk  about  it,"  he  urged.  "No 
good  talking  about  it.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to 
fight  it — get  out  of  the  machine  ..." 

"But  there's  nowhere  to  go,  is  there?"  asked 
Jenny.  "I  was  thinking  about  it  this  evening. 
'They've'  got  every  bit  of  the  earth.  Wherever 
you  go  '  they  're'  there  .  .  .  with  laws  and  police 
and  things  all  ready  for  you.  You've  got  to  give 
in." 

"I'm  not  going  to,"  said  Keith.  "I'll  tell  you 
that,  Jenny." 

"But  Keith!  Who  is  it  that  makes  it  so ?  There 
must  be  somebody  to  start  it.  Is  it  God?" 

Keith  laughed  again,  still  more  drily  and 
grimly. 

ii 

Jenny  was  not  yet  satisfied.  She  still  continued 
to  revolve  the  matter  in  her  mind. 

"You  said  nobody  was  free,  Keith.    But  then 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  177 

you  said  you  were  free — when  you  got  married." 

"Till  I  got  married.  Then  I  wasn't.  I  fell 
into  the  machine  and  got  badly  chawed  then." 

"Don't  you  want  to  get  married?"  Jenny  asked. 
"Ever  again?" 

"Not  that  way."  Keith's  jaw  was  set.  "I've 
been  there;  and  to  me  that's  what  hell  is." 

How  Jenny  wished  she  could  understand !  She 
did  not  want  to  get  married  herself — that  way. 
But  she  wanted  to  serve.  She  wanted  Keith  to 
be  her  husband ;  she  wanted  to  make  him  happy, 
and  to  make  his  home  comfortable.  She  felt  that 
to  work  for  the  man  she  loved  was  the  way  to  be 
truly  happy.  Did  he  not  think  that  he  could  be 
happy  in  working  for  her?  She  couldn't  under- 
stand. It  was  all  so  hard  that  she  sometimes 
felt  that  her  brain  was  clamped  with  iron  bolts 
and  chains. 

"What  way  d'you  want  to  get  married?"  Jenny 
asked. 

"I  want  to  marry  you.  Any  old  way.  And  I 
want  to  take  you  to  the  other  end  of  the  world 
—where  there  aren't  any  laws  and  neighbours 
and  rates  and  duties  and  politicians  and  imita- 
tions of  life.  .  .  .  And  I  want  to  set  you  down 
on  virgin  soil  and  make  a  real  life  for  you.  In' 
Labrador  or  Alaska  ..."  He  glowed  with  en- 
thusiasm. Jenny  glowed  too,  infected  by  his 
enthusiasm. 


178  NOCTURNE 

11  Sounds  fine!"  she  said.  Keith  exclaimed 
eagerly.  He  was  alive  with  joy  at  her  wel- 
come. 

" Would  you  come?"  he  cried.    "Really?" 

"To  the  end  of  the  world?"  Jenny  said. 
"Rather!" 

They  kissed  passionately,  carried  away  by  their 
excitement,  brimming  with  joy  at  their  agree- 
ment in  feeling  and  desire.  The  cabin  seemed  to 
expand  into  the  virgin  forest  and  the  open  plain. 
A  new  vision  of  life  was  opened  to  Jenny.  Ex- 
ultingly  she  pictured  the  future,  bright,  active, 
occupied — away  from  all  the  old  cramping  things. 
It  was  the  life  she  had  dreamed,  away  from  men, 
away  from  stuffy  rooms  and  endless  millinery, 
away  from  regular  hours  and  tedious  meals,  away 
from  all  that  now  made  up  her  daily  dullness. 
It  was  splendid!  Her  quick  mind  was  at  work, 
seeing,  arranging,  imagining  as  warm  as  life  the 
changed  days  that  would  come  in  such  a  terres- 
trial Paradise.  And  then  Keith,  watching  with 
triumph  the  mounting  joy  in  her  expression,  saw 
the  joy  subside,  the  brilliance  fade,  the  eagerness 
give  place  to  doubt  and  then  to  dismay. 

"What  is  it?"  he  begged.    "Jenny,  dear!" 

"It's  Pa!"  Jenny  said.  "I  couldn't  leave  him 
.  .  .  not  for  anything! 

"Is  that  all?  We'll  take  him  with  us!"  cried 
Keith.  Jenny  sorrowfully  shook  her  head. 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  179 

"No.     He's   paralysed,"   she   explained,   and 
sighed  deeply  at  the  faded  vision. 


iii 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  give  up  the  idea  for 
that,"  Keith  resumed,  after  a  moment.  Jenny 
shook  her  head,  and  a  wry  smile  stole  into  her 
face,  making  it  appear  thinner  than  before. 

"I  didn't  expect  you  would,"  she  said  quietly. 
"It's  me  that  has  to  give  it  up." 

"Jenny!"  He  was  astonished  by  her  tone. 
' l  D  'you  think  I  meant  that  ?  Never !  We  '11  man- 
age something.  Something  can  be  done.  When 
I  come  back  ..." 

"Ah,  you're  going  away!"  Jenny  cried  in 
agony.  "I  shan't  see  you.  I  shall  have  every 
day  to  think  of  ...  day  after  day.  And  you 
won't  write.  And  I  shan't  see  you.  .  .  .  She 
held  him  to  her,  her  breast  against  his,  desperate 
with  the  dread  of  being  separated  from  him. 
"It's  easy  for  you,  at  sea,  with  the  wind  and  the 
sun;  and  something  fresh  to  see,  and  something 
happening  all  the  time.  But  me — in  a  dark  room, 
poring  over  bits  of  straw  and  velvet  to  make  hats 
for  soppy  women,  and  then  going  home  to  old 
Em  and  stew  for  dinner.  There's  not  much  fun 
in  it,  Keith.  .  .  .  No,  I  didn't  mean  to  worry 
you  by  grizzling.  It's  too  bad  of  me!  But  see- 
ing you,  and  hearing  that  plan,  it's  made  me 


i8o  NOCTURNE 

remember  how  beastly  I  felt  before  yonr  letter 
came  this  evening.  I  was  nearly  mad  with  it. 
I'd  been  mad  before;  but  never  as  bad  as  this 
was.  And  then  your  letter  came — and  I  wanted 
to  come  to  you;  and  I  came,  and  we've  wasted 
such  a  lot  of  time  not  understanding  each  other. 
Even  now,  I  can't  be  sure  you  love  me — not 
sure.!  I  think  you  do ;  but  you  only,  say  so.  How's 
anyone  ever  to  be  sure,  unless  they  know  it  in 
their  bones?  And  I've  been  thinking  about  you 
every  minute  since  we  met.  Because  I  never  met 
anybody  like  you,  or  loved  anybody  before  ..." 
She  broke  off,  her  voice  trembling,  her  face 
against  his,  breathless  and  exhausted. 

iv 

"Now  listen,  Jenny,"  said  Keith.  "This  is 
this.  I  love  you,  and  you  love  me.  That's  right, 
isn't  it?  Well.  I  don't  care  about  marriage — I 
mean,  a  ceremony;  but  you  do.  So  we'll  be  mar- 
ried when  I  come  back  in  three  months.  That's 
all  right,  isn't  it?  And  when  we're  married, 
we'll  either  take  your  father  with  us,  whatever 
his  health's  like;  or  we'll  do  something  with  him 
that'll  do  as  well  I  should  be  ready  to  put  him 
in  somebody's  care;  but  you  wouldn't  like 
that  ..." 

"I  love  him,"  Jenny  said.  "I  couldn't  leave 
him  to  somebody  else  for  ever." 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  181 

"Yes.  Well,  you  see  there's  nothing  to  be  mis- 
erable about.  It's  all  straightforward  now. 
Nothing — except  that  we're  going  to  be  apart  for 
three  months.  Now,  Jen:  don't  let's  waste 
any  more  time  being  miserable;  but  let's  sit 
down  and  be  happy  for  a  bit.  .  .  .  How's 
that!" 

Jenny  smiled,  and  allowed  him  to  bring  her 
once  again  to  the  settee  and  to  begin  once  more 
to  describe  their  future  life. 

"It's  cold  there,  Jenny.  Not  warm  at  alL 
Snow  and  ice.  And  you  won't  see  anybody  for 
weeks  and  months — anybody  but  just  me.  And 
we  shall  have  to  do  everything  for  ourselves — 
clothes,  house-building,  food  catching  and  killing. 
.  .  .  Trim  your  own  hats.  .  .  .  Like  the  Swiss 
Family  Robinson;  only  you  won't  have  every- 
thing growing  outside  as  they  did.  And  we'll 
go  out  in  canoes  if  we  go  on  the  water  at  all ;  and 
see  Indians — 'Heap  big  man  bacca'  sort  of  busi- 
ness— and  perhaps  hear  wolves  (I'm  not  quite, 
sure  of  that) ;  and  go  about  on  sledges  .  .  .  with 
dogs  to  draw  them.  But  with  all  that  we  shall  be 
free.  There  won't  be  any  bureaucrats  to  tyran- 
nise over  us ;  no  fashions,  no  regulations,  no  home- 
made laws  to  make  dull  boys  of  us.  Just  fancy, 
Jenny :  nobody  to  make  us  do  anything.  Nothing 
but  our  own  needs  and  wishes  ..." 

"I  expect  we  shall  tyrannise — as  you  call  it — 


182  NOCTURNE 

over  each  other,"  Jenny  said  shrewdly.  "It  seems 
to  me  that's  what  people  do." 

"Little  wretch!"  cried  Keith.  "To  interrupt 
with  such  a  thing.  When  I  was  just  getting  busy 
and  eloquent.  I  tell  you:  there'll  be  inconve- 
niences. You  '11  find  you  '11  want  somebody  besides 
me  to  talk  to  and  look  after.  But  then  perhaps 
you'll  have  somebody!" 

"Who?"  asked  Jenny,  unsuspiciously.  "Not 
Pa,  I'm  sure." 

Keith  held  her  away  from  him,  and  looked  into 
her  eyes.  Then  he  crushed  her  against  him,  laugh- 
ing. It  took  Jenny  quite  a  minute  to  understand 
what  he  meant. 

"Very  dull,  aren 't  you ! ' '  cried  Keith.  1 1 Can 't 
see  beyond  the  end  of  your  nose." 

"I  shouldn't  think  it  was  hardly  the  sort  of 
place  for  babies,"  Jenny  sighed.  "From  what 
you  say." 

v 

Keith  roared  with  laughter,  so  that  the  Minerva 
seemed  to  shake  in  sympathy  with  his  mirth. 

"You're  priceless!"  he  said.  "My  bonny 
Jenny.  I  shouldn't  think  there  was  ever  any- 
body like  you  in  the  world!" 

"Lots  of  girls,"  Jenny  reluctantly  suggested, 
shaking  a  dolorous  head  at  the  ghost  of  a  faded 
vanity.  "I'm  afraid."  She  revived  even  as  she 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  183 

spoke;  and  encouragingly  added:  "Perhaps  not 
exactly  like." 

"I  don't  believe  it!  You're  unique.  The  one 
and  only  Jenny  Redington!" 

"Red !"  Jenny's  colour  flamed.  "Sounds 

nice,"  she  said;  and  was  then  silent. 

"When  we're  married,"  went  on  Keith,  watch- 
ing her;  "where  shall  we  go  for  our  honeymoon? 
I  say !  .  .  .  how  would  you  like  it  if  I  borrowed 
the  yacht  from  Templecombe  and  ran  you  off 
somewhere  in  it?  I  expect  he'd  let  me  have  the 
old  Minerva.  Not  a  bad  idea,  eh  what!" 

"When  we're  married,"  Jenny  said  breath- 
lessly, very  pale. 

"What  d'you  mean?"  Keith's  eyes  were  so 
close  to  her  own  that  she  was  forced  to  lower 
her  lids.  "When  I  come  back  from  this  trip. 
Templecombe  says  three  months.  It  may  be  less." 

"It  may  be  more."  Jenny  had  hardly  the 
will  to  murmur  her  warning — her  distrust. 

"Very  unlikely;  unless  the  weather's  bad.  I'm 
reckoning  on  a  mild  winter.  If  it's  cold  and 
stormy  then  of  course  yachting's  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. But  we'll  be  back  before  the  winter,  any 
way.  And  then — darling  Jenny — we'll  be  mar- 
ried as  soon  as  I  can  get  the  licence.  There's 
something  for  you  to  look  forward  to,  my  sweet. 
Will  you  like  to  look  forward  to  it?" 

Jenny  could  feel  his  breath  upon  her  face ;  but 


184  NOCTURNE 

she  could  not  move  or  speak.  Her  breast  was 
rising  to  quickened  breathing;  her  eyes  were 
burning;  her  mouth  was  dry.  When  she  mois- 
tened her  lips  she  seemed  to  hear  a  cracking  in 
her  mouth.  It  was  as  though  fever  were  upon 
her,  so  moved  was  she  by  the  expression  in 
Keith's  eyes.  She  was  neither  happy  nor  un- 
happy ;  but  she  was  watching  his  face  as  if  fasci- 
nated. She  could  feel  his  arm  so  gently  about 
her  shoulder,  and  his  breast  against  hers ;  and  she 
loved  him  with  all  her  heart.  She  had  at  this 
time  no  thought  of  home;  only  the  thought  that 
they  loved  each  other  and  that  Keith  would  be 
away  for  three  months;  facing  dangers  indeed, 
but  all  the  time  loving  her.  She  thought  of  the 
future,  of  that  time  when  they  both  would  be  free, 
when  they  should  no  longer  be  checked  and 
bounded  by  the  fear  of  not  having  enough  food. 
That  was  the  thing,  Jenny  felt,  that  kept  poor 
people  in  dread  of  the  consequences  of  their  own 
acts.  And  Jenny  felt  that  if  they  might  live 
apart  from  the  busy  world,  enduring  together 
whatever  ills  might  come  to  them  from  their  un- 
sophisticated mode  of  life,  they  would  be  able  to 
be  happy.  She  thought  that  Keith  would  have 
no  temptations  that  she  did  not  share;  no  other 
men  drawing  him  by  imitativeness  this  way  and 
that,  out  of  the  true  order  of  his  own  character; 
no  employer  exacting  in  return  for  the  weekly 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  185 

wage  a  servitude  that  was  far  from  the  blessed 
ideal  of  service.  Jenny  thought  these  things 
very  simply — impulsively — and  not  in  a  form  to 
be  intelligible  if  set  down  as  they  occurred  to  her ; 
but  the  notions  swam  in  her  head  along  with  her 
love  for  Keith  and  her  joy  in  the  love  which 
he  returned.  She  saw  his  dear  face  so  close  to 
her  own,  and  heard  her  own  heart  thumping  ve- 
hemently, quicker  and  quicker,  so  that  it  sounded 
thunderously  in  her  ears.  She  could  see  Keith's 
eyes,  so  easily  to  be  read,  showing  out  the  im- 
pulses that  crossed  and  possessed  his  mind.  Love 
for  her  she  was  sure  she  read,  love  and  kindness 
for  her,  and  mystification,  and  curiosity,  and  the 
hot  slumbering  desire  for  her  that  made  his 
breathing  short  and  heavy.  In  a  dream  she 
thought  of  these  things,  and  in  a  dream  she  felt 
her  own  love  for  Keith  rising  and  stifling  her,  so 
that  she  could  not  speak,  but  could  only  rest 
there  in  his  arms,  watching  that  beloved  face 
and  storing  her  memory  with  its  precious 
betrayals. 

Keith  gently  kissed  her,  and  Jenny  trembled. 
A  thousand  temptations  were  whirling  in  her 
mind — thoughts  of  his  absence,  their  marriage, 
memory,  her  love.  .  .  .  With  an  effort  she  raised 
her  lips  again  to  his,  kissing  him  in  passion,  so 
that  when  he  as  passionately  responded  it  seemed 
as  though  she  fainted  in  his  arms  and  lost  all 


i86  NOCTURNE 

consciousness  but  that  of  her  love  and  confidence 
in  him  and  the  eager  desire  of  her  nature  to  yield 
itself  where  love  was  givea. 


CHAPTER  X:  CINDERELLA 


THROUGH  the  darkness,  and  into  the  bright- 
ness of  the  moon's  light,  the  rolling  notes 
of  Big  Ben  were  echoing  and  re-echoing,  as  each 
stroke  followed  and  drove  away  the  lingering 
waves  of  its  predecessor  and  was  in  turn  dis- 
persed by  the  one  that  came  after.  The  sounds 
made  the  street  noises  sharper,  a  mere  rattle 
against  the  richness  of  the  striking  clock.  It  was 
an  hour  that  struck;  and  the  quarters  were  fol- 
lowed by  twelve  single  notes.  Midnight.  And 
Jenny  Blanchard  was  still  upon  the  Minerva;  and 
Emmy  and  Alf  had  left  the  theatre;  and  Pa 
Blanchard  was  alone  in  the  little  house  in  Ken- 
nington  Park. 

The  silvered  blackness  of  the  Minerva  was  dis- 
turbed. A  long  streak  of  yellow  light  showed 
from  the  door  leading  into  the  cabin  while  yet  the 
sounds  of  the  clock  hung  above  the  river.  It 
became  ghostly  against  the  moonlight  that 
bleached  the  deck,  a  long  grey-yellow  finger  point- 
ing the  way  to  the  yacht's  side. 

Jenny  and  Keith  made  their  way  up  the  steps 
and  to  the  deck,  and  Jenny  shivered  a  little  in  the 

187 


i88  NOCTURNE 

strong  light.  Her  face  was  in  shadow.  She  hur- 
ried, restored  to  sanity  by  the  sounds  and  tha 
thought  of  her  father.  Horror  and  self-blame 
were  active  in  her  mind — not  from  the  fear  of 
discovery;  but  from  shame  at  having  for  so  long 
deserted  him. 

"Oh,  hurry!"  Jenny  whispered,  as  Keith 
slipped  over  the  side  of  the  yacht  into  the  wait- 
ing dinghy.  There  was  a  silence,  and  presently 
the  heavy  cludder  of  oars  against  the  boat's 
side. 

"Jenny!  Come  along!"  called  Keith  from  the 
water. 

Not  now  did  Jenny  shrink  from  the  running 
tide.  Her  one  thought  was  to  get  home;  and 
she  had  no  inclination  to  think  of  what  lay  be- 
tween her  and  Kennington  Park.  She  hardly 
understood  what  Keith  said  as  he  rowed  to  the 
steps.  She  saw  the  bridge  looming,  its  black 
shadow  cutting  the  water  that  sparkled  so  dully 
in  the  moonlight;  and  then  she  saw  the  steps 
leading  from  the  bridge  to  the  river's  edge.  They 
were  alongside;  she  was  ashore;  and  Keith  was 
pressing  her  hand  in  parting.  Still  she  could  not 
look  at  him  until  she  was  at  the  top  of  the  steps, 
when  she  turned  and  raised  her  hand  in  farewell. 

ii 
She  knew  she  had  to  walk  for  a  little  way  down 


CINDERELLA  189 

the  road  in  the  direction  of  her  home,  and  then  up 
a  side  street,  where  she  had  been  told  that  she 
would  find  the  motor  car  awaiting  her.  And  for 
some  seconds  she  could  not  bear  the  idea  of 
speaking  to  the  chauffeur,  from  the  sense  that  he 
must  know  exactly  how  long  she  had  been  on 
board  the  yacht.  The  hesitation  caused  her  to 
linger,  as  the  cold  air  had  caused  her  to  think. 
It  was  as  though  she  feared  that  when  he  was 
found  the  man  would  be  impudent  to  her,  and 
leer,  behaving  familiarly  as  he  might  have  done 
to  a  common  woman.  Because  she  was  alone 
and  unprotected.  It  was  terrible.  Her  secret 
filled  her  with  the  sense  of  irremediable  guilt. 
Already  she  was  staled  with  the  evening's  excite- 
ment. She  stopped  and  wavered,  her  shadow,  so 
black  and  small,  hesitating  as  she  did.  Could  she 
walk  home?  She  looked  at  the  black  houses,  and 
listened  to  the  terrifying  sinister  roar  that  con- 
tinued faintly  to  fill  the  air.  Could  she  go  by 
tram?  If  she  did — whatever  she  did — the  man 
might  wait  for  her  all  night,  and  Keith  would 
know  how  cowardly  she  had  been.  It  might  even 
come  to  the  ears  of  Lord  Templecombe,  and  dis- 
grace Keith  before  him.  To  go  or  to  stay  was 
equally  to  bring  acute  distress  upon  herself,  the 
breathless  shame  of  being  thought  disgraced  for 
ever.  Already  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  shadows 
were  peopled  with  observers  ready  to  spy  upon 


190  NOCTURNE 

her,  to  seize  her,  to  bear  her  away  into  hidden 
places.  .  .  . 

At  last,  her  mind  resolved  by  her  fears,  which 
crowded  upon  her  in  a  tumult,  Jenny  stepped 
fearfully  forward.  The  car  was  there,  dimly  out- 
lined, a  single  light  visible  to  her  eye.  It  was 
drawn  upon  at  the  side  of  the  street;  and  the 
chauffeur  was  fast  asleep,  his  head  upon  his  arms, 
and  his  arms  spread  upon  the  steering-wheel. 

"I  say!"  cried  Jenny  in  a  panic,  her  glance 
quickly  over  her  shoulder  at  unseen  dangers. 
" Wake  up!  Wake  up!" 

She  stepped  into  the  car,  and  it  began  to  quiver 
with  life  as  the  engine  was  started.  Then,  as  if 
drowned  in  the  now  familiar  scent  of  the  hanging 
bouquet,  Jenny  lay  back  once  more  in  the  soft 
cushions;  bound  for  home,  for  Emmy  and  Alf 
and  Pa;  her  evening's  excursion  at  an  end,  and 
only  its  sequel  to  endure. 


PART  THREE 
MORNING 


CHAPTER  XI:  AFTER  THE  THEATRE 


AFTER  leaving  the  house  Emmy  and  Alf 
pressed  along  in  the  darkness,  Alf's  arm 
still  surrounding  and  supporting  Emmy,  Emmy 
still  half  jubilantly  and  half  sorrowfully  continu- 
ing to  recognise  her  happiness  and  the  smothered 
chagrin  of  her  emotions.  She  was  not  able  to 
feel  either  happy  or  miserable ;  but  happiness  was 
uppermost.  Dislike  of  Jenny  had  its  place,  also ; 
for  she  could  account  for  every  weakness  of  Alf 's 
by  reference  to  Jenny's  baseness.  But  indeed 
Emmy  could  not  think,  and  could  only  passively 
and  excitedly  endure  the  conflicting  emotions  of 
the  moment.  And  Alf  did  not  speak,  but  hur- 
ried her  along  as  fast  as  his  strong  arm  could 
secure  her  compliance  with  his  own  pace;  and 
they  walked  through  the  night-ridden  streets  and 
full  into  the  blaze  of  the  theatre  entrance  with- 
out any  words  at  all.  Then,  when  the  staring 
vehemence  of  the  electric  lights  whitened  and 
shadowed  her  face,  Emmy  drew  away,  casting 
down  her  eyes,  alarmed  at  the  disclosures  which 
the  brilliance  might  devastatingly  make.  She 
slipped  from  his  arm,  and  stood  rather  forlornly 

193 


194  NOCTURNE 

while  Alf  fished  in  his  pockets  for  the  tickets. 
With  docility  she  followed  him,  thrilled  when  he 
stepped  aside  in  passing  the  commissionaire  and 
took  her  arm.  Together  they  went  up  the  stairs, 
the  heavy  carpets  with  their  drugget  covers  si- 
lencing every  step,  the  gilded  mirrors  throwing 
their  reflections  backwards  and  forwards  until 
the  stairs  seemed  peopled  with  hosts  of  Emmys 
and  Alfs.  As  they  drew  near  the  closed  doors  of 
the  circle  the  hush  filling  the  staircases  and  vesti- 
bules of  the  theatre  was  intensified.  An  aproned 
attendant  seemed  to  Emmy's  sensitiveness  to  look 
them  up  and  down  and  superciliously  to  disap- 
prove them.  She  moved  with  indignation.  A  dull 
murmur,  as  of  single  voices,  disturbed  the  air 
somewhere  behind  the  rustling  attendant:  and 
when  the  doors  were  quickly  opened  Emmy  saw 
beyond  the  darkness  and  the  intrusive  flash  of 
light  caused  by  the  opening  doors  a  square  of 
brilliance  and  a  dashing  figure  upon  the  stage 
talking  staccato.  Those  of  the  audience  who  were 
sitting  near  the  doors  turned  angrily  and  with 
curiosity  to  view  the  new-comers;  and  the  voice 
that  Emmy  had  distinguished  went  more  strid- 
ently on,  with  a  strong  American  accent.  In  a 
flurry  she  found  and  crept  into  her  seat,  trying 
to  understand  the  play,  to  touch  Alf,  to  remove 
her  hat,  to  discipline  her  excitements.  And  the 
staccato  voice  went  on  and  on,  detailing  a  plan. 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  195 

of  some  sort  which  she  could  not  understand  be- 
cause they  had  missed  the  first  five  minutes  of 
the  play.  Emmy  could  not  tell  that  the  actor  was 
only  pretending  to  be  an  American ;  she  could  not 
understand  why,  having  spoken  twenty  words, 
he  must  take  six  paces  farther  from  the  footlights 
until  he  had  spoken  thirteen  more ;  but  she  could 
and  did  feel  most  overwhelmingly  exuberant  at 
being  as  it  were  alone  in  that  half -silent  multi- 
tude, sitting  beside  Alf,  their  arms  touching,  her 
head  whirling,  her  heart  beating,  and  a  wholly 
exquisite  warmth  flushing  her  cheeks. 

ii 

The  first  interval  found  the  play  well  advanced. 
A  robbery  had  been  planned — for  it  was  a 
"crook"  play — and  the  heroine  had  already  re- 
ceived wild-eyed  the  advances  of  a  fur-coated  mil- 
lionaire. When  the  lights  of  the  theatre  popped 
up,  and  members  of  the  orchestra  began  once  more 
unmercifully  to  tune  their  instruments,  it  was 
possible  to  look  round  at  the  not  especially  large 
audience.  But  in  whichever  direction  Emmy 
looked  she  was  always  brought  back  as  by  a  mag- 
net to  Alf,  who  sat  ruminantly  beside  her.  To 
Alf's  sidelong  eye  Emmy  was  looking  surpris- 
ingly lovely.  The  tired  air  and  the  slightly  peev- 
ish mouth  to  which  he  was  accustomed  had  given 
place  to  the  flush  and  sparkle  of  an  excited  girl. 


196  NOCTURNE 

Alf  was  aware  of  surprise.  He  blinked.  He  saw 
the  lines  smoothed  away  from  round  her  mouth— 
the  lines  of  weariness  and  dissatisfaction, — and 
was  tempted  by  the  softness  of  her  cheek.  As 
he  looked  quickly  off  again  he  thought  how  full 
Jenny  would  have  been  of  comment  upon  the 
play,  how  he  would  have  sat  grinning  with  pre- 
cious enjoyment  at  her  merciless  gibes  during  the 
whole  of  the  interval.  He  had  the  sense  of  Jenny 
as  all  movement,  as  flashing  and  drawing  him  into 
quagmires  of  sensation,  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp. 
Emmy  was  not  like  that.  She  sat  tremulously 
smiling,  humble  before  him,  diffident,  flattering. 
She  was  intelligent :  that  was  it.  Intelligent  was 
the  word.  Not  lively,  but  restful.  Critically  he 
regarded  her.  Bather  a  nice  girl,  Emmy.  .  .  . 

Alf  roused  himself,  and  looked  around. 

"Here,  miss!"  he  called;  and  "S-s-s-s"  when 
she  did  not  hear  him.  It  was  his  way  of  sum- 
moning an  attendant  or  a  waitress.  "S-s-s-s." 
The  attendant  brought  chocolates,  which  Alf 
handed  rather  magnificently  to  his  companion. 
He  plunged  into  his  pockets — in  his  rough-and- 
ready,  muscular  way — for  the  money,  leaning  far 
over  the  next  seat,  which  was  unoccupied.  "Like 
some  lemon?"  he  said  to  Emmy.  Together  they 
inspected  the  box  of  chocolates,  which  contained 
much  imitation-lace  paper  and  a  few  sweets. 
"Not  half  a  sell,"  grumbled  Alf  to  himself,  think- 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  197 

ing  of  the  shilling  he  had  paid;  but  he  looked 
with  gratification  at  Emmy's  face  as  she  enjoy- 
ingly  ate  the  chocolates.  As  her  excitement  a 
little  strained  her  nervous  endurance  Emmy  be- 
gan to  pale  under  the  eyes;  her  eyes  seemed  to 
grow  larger;  she  lost  the  first  air  of  sparkle,  but 
she  became  more  pathetic.  "Poor  little  thing," 
thought  Alf,  feeling  masculine.  "Poor  little 
thing:  she's  tired.  Poor  little  thing." 

iii 

In  the  middle  of  this  hot,  excitedly-talking 
audience,  they  seemed  to  bask  as  in  a  warm  pool 
of  brilliant  light.  The  brilliants  in  the  dome  of 
the  theatre  intensified  all  the  shadows,  height- 
ened all  the  smiles,  illumined  all  the  silken  blouses 
and  silver  bangles,  the  flashing  eyes,  the  general 
air  of  fete. 

"All  right?"  Alf  inquired  protectively.  Emmy 
looked  in  gratitude  towards  him. 

"Lovely,"  she  said.     "Have  another?" 

"I  meant  you,"  he  persisted.  "Yourself,  I 
mean."  Emmy  smiled,  so  happily  that  nobody 
could  have  been  unmoved  at  the  knowledge  of 
having  given  such  pleasure. 

"Oh,  grand!"  Emmy  said.  Then  her  eyes  con- 
tracted. Memory  came  to  her.  The  angry  scene 
that  had  passed  earlier  returned  to  her  mind, 
hurting  her,  and  injuring  her  happiness. 


198  NOCTURNE 

hurried  to  engage  her  attention,  to  distract  her 
from  thoughts  that  had  in  them  such  discomfort 
as  she  so  quickly  showed. 

"Like  the  play?  I  didn't  quite  follow  what  it 
was  this  old  general  had  done  to  him.  Did  you  ? ' ' 

" Hadn't  he  kept  him  from  marrying  .  .  ." 
Emmy  looked  conscious  for  a  moment.  "  Marry- 
ing the  right  girl?  I  didn't  understand  it  either. 
It's  only  a  play." 

1 '  Of  course, ' '  Alf  agreed.  *  *  See  how  that  girl 's 
eyes  shone  when  old  fur-coat  went  after  her? 
Fair  shone,  they  did.  Like  lamps.  They'd  got 
the  limes  on  her.  .  .  .  You  couldn't  see  them. 
My — er — my  friend's  the  electrician  here.  He 
says  it  drives  him  nearly  crazy,  the  way  he  has 
to  follow  her  about  in  the  third  act.  She  .  .  . 
she's  got  some  pluck,  he  says;  the  way  she  fights 
three  of  them  single-handed.  They've  all  got  re- 
volvers. She's  got  one;  but  it's  not  loaded. 
Lights  a  cigarette,  too,  with  them  all  watching 
her,  ready  to  rush  at  her." 

"There!"  said  Emmy,  admiringly.  She  was 
thinking:  "It's  only  a  play." 

"She  gets  hold  of  his  fur  coat,  and  puts  it  on. 
.  .  .  Imitates  his  voice.  .  .  .  You  can  see  it's 
her  all  the  time,  you  know.  So  could  they,  if 
they  looked  a  bit  nearer.  However,  they  don't. 
...  I  suppose  there  wouldn't  be  any  play  if 
they  did.  ..." 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  199 

Emmy  was  not  listening  to  him :  she  was  dream- 
ing. She  was  as  gauche  and  simple  in  his  com- 
pany as  a  young  girl  would  have  been;  but  her 
mind  was  different.  It  was  practical  in  its 
dreams,  and  they  had  their  disturbing  unhappi- 
ness,  as  well,  from  the  greater  poignancy  of  her 
desire.  She  was  not  a  young  girl,  to  be  agreeably 
fluttered  and  to  pass  on  to  the  next  admirer  with- 
out a  qualm.  She  loved  him,  blindly  but  pain- 
fully; without  the  ease  of  young  love,  but  with 
all  the  sickness  of  first  love.  And  she  had  jeal- 
ousy, the  feeling  that  she  was  not  his  first  object, 
to  poison  her  feelings.  She  could  not  think  of 
Jenny  without  tremors  of  anger.  And  still,  for 
pain,  her  thoughts  went  throbbing  on  about 
Jenny  whenever,  in  happiness,  she  had  seen  a 
home  and  Alf  and  a  baby  and  the  other  plain 
clear  consequences  of  earning  his  love — of  taking 
him  from  Jenny. 

And  then  the  curtain  rose,  the  darkness  fell, 
and  the  orchestra's  tune  slithered  into  nothing. 
The  play  went  on,  about  the  crook  and  the  general 
and  the  millionaire  and  the  heroine  and  all  their 
curiously  simple-minded  friends.  And  every  mo- 
ment something  happened  upon  the  stage,  from 
fights  to  thefts,  from  kisses  (which  those  in  the 
gallery,  not  wholly  absorbed  by  the  play,  gener- 
ously augmented)  to  telephone  calls,  plots, 
speeches  (many  speeches,  of  irreproachable 


200  NOCTURNE 

moral  tone),  shoutings,  and  sudden  wild  appeals 
to  the  delighted  occupants  of  the  gallery.  And 
Emmy  sat  through  it  hardly  heeding  the  uncom- 
mon events,  aware  of  them  as  she  would  have 
been  aware  of  distant  shouting.  Her  attention 
was  preoccupied  with  other  matters.  She  had  her 
own  thoughts,  serious  enough  in  themselves. 
Above  all,  she  was  enjoying  the  thought  that  she 
was  with  Alf ,  and  that  their  arms  were  touching ; 
and  she  was  wondering  if  he  knew  that. 

iv 

Through  another  interval  they  sat  with  silent 
embarrassment,  the  irreplaceable  chocolates, 
which  had  earlier  been  consumed,  having  served 
their  turn  as  a  means  of  devouring  attention. 
Alf  was  tempted  to  fly  to  the  bar  for  a  drink  and 
composure,  but  he  did  not  like  to  leave  Emmy; 
and  he  could  not  think  of  anything  which  could 
safely  be  said  to  her  in  the  middle  of  this  gather- 
ing of  hot  and  radiant  persons.  "To  speak"  in 
such  uproar  meant  "to  shout."  He  felt  that  every 
word  he  uttered  would  go  echoing  in  rolls  and 
rolls  of  sound  out  among  the  multitude.  They 
were  not  familiar  enough  to  make  that  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  him.  He  was  in  the  stage  of 
secretiveness.  And  Emmy,  after  trying  once  or 
twice  to  open  various  small  topics,  had  fallen  back 
upon  her  own  thoughts,  and  could  invent  nothing 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  201 

to  talk  about  until  the  difficulties  that  lay  between 
them  had  been  removed.  Her  brow  contracted. 
She  moved  her  shoulders,  or  sat  pressed  reserv- 
edly against  the  back  of  her  seat.  Her  voice, 
whenever  she  did  not  immediately  hear  some  word 
fall  from  Alf ,  became  sharp  and  self-conscious — 
almost  *  *  managing. ' ' 

It  was  a  relief  to  both  of  them,  and  in  both 
the  tension  of  sincere  feeling  had  perceptibly 
slackened,  when  the  ignored  orchestra  gave  way 
before  the  rising  curtain.  Again  the  two  drew 
together  in  the  darkness,  as  all  other  couples  were 
doing,  comforted  by  proximity,  and  even  by  the 
unacknowledged  mutual  pleasure  of  it;  again 
they  watched  the  extraordinary  happenings  upon 
the  stage.  The  fur  coat  was  much  used,  cigarettes 
were  lighted  and  flung  away  with  prodigal  reck- 
lessness, pistols  were  revealed — one  of  them  was 
even  fired  into  the  air; — and  jumping,  trickling 
music  heightened  the  effects  of  a  number  of 
strong  speeches  about  love,  and  incorruptibility, 
and  womanhood.  .  .  .  The  climax  was  reached. 
In  the  middle  of  the  climax,  while  yet  the  lover 
wooed  and  the  villain  died,  the  audience  began  to 
rustle,  preparatory  to  going  home.  Even  Emmy 
was  influenced  to  the  extent  of  discovering  and 
beginning  to  adjust  her  hat.  It  was  while  she 
was  pinning  it,  with  her  elbows  raised,  that  the 
curtain  fell.  Both  Emmy  and  Alf  rose  in  the 


202  NOCTURNE 

immediately  successive  re-illumination  of  the  the- 
atre ;  and  Emmy  looked  so  pretty  with  her  arms 
up,  and  with  the  new  hat  so  coquettishly  askew 
upon  her  head,  and  with  a  long  hatpin  between 
her  teeth,  that  Alf  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to 
put  his  arm  affectionately  round  her  in  leading 
the  way  out. 

v 

And  then,  once  in  the  street,  he  made  no  scru- 
ple about  taking  Emmy's  arm  within  the  crook 
of  his  as  they  moved  from  the  staring  whiteness 
of  the  theatre  lamps  out  into  the  calmer  moon- 
shine. It  was  eleven  o'clock.  The  night  was  fine, 
and  the  moon  rode  high  above  amid  the  twinkling 
stars.  When  Alf  looked  at  Emmy's  face  it  was 
transfigured  in  this  beautiful  light,  and  he  drew 
her  gently  from  {he  direct  way  back  to  the  little 
house. 

* '  Don 't  let 's  go  straight  back, ' '  he  said.  * '  Stroll 
u'll  do  us  good." 

Very  readily  Emmy  obeyed  his  guidance.  Her 
heart  was  throbbing;  but  her  brain  was  clear. 
He  wanted  to  be  with  her;  and  the  knowledge  of 
that  made  Emmy  happier  than  she  had  been  since 
early  childhood. 

"It's  been  lovely,"  she  said,  with  real  warmth 
of  gratitude,  looking  away  from  him  with  shyness. 

"Hm,"  growled  Alf,  in  a  voice  of  some  confu- 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  203 

sion.  "Er  .  .  .  you  don't  go  much  to  the  theatre, 
do  you?" 

"Not  much,"  Emmy  agreed.  "See,  there's  Pa. 
He  always  looks  to  me  ..." 

"Yes."  Alf  could  not  add  anything  to  that 
for  a  long  time.  "Fine  night,"  he  presently  re- 
corded. "D'you  like  a  walk?  I  mean  .  .  .I'm 
very  fond  of  it,  a  night  like  this.  Mr.  Blanchard's 
all  right,  I  suppose?" 

"Oh,  yes.  She's  there."  Emmy  could  not 
bring  herself  to  name  Jenny  to  him.  Yet  her 
mind  was  busy  thinking  of  the  earlier  jar,  recom- 
posing  the  details,  recalling  the  words  that  had 
passed.  Memory  brought  tears  into  her  eyes; 
but  she  would  not  allow  Alf  to  see  them,  and  soon 
she  recovered  her  self-control.  It  had  to  be 
spoken  of:  the  evening  could  not  pass  without 
reference  to  it ;  or  it  would  spoil  everything.  Alf 
would  think  of  her — he  was  bound  to  think  of 
her — as  a  crying,  petulant,  jealous  woman,  to 
whom  he  had  been  merely  kind.  Patronising, 
even!  Perhaps,  even,  the  remembrance  of  it 
would  prevent  him  from  coming  again  to  the 
house.  Men  like  Alf  were  so  funny  in  that  respect. 
It  took  so  little  to  displease  them,  to  drive  them 
away  altogether.  At  last  she  ventured:  "It  was 
nice  of  you  to  take  me." 

Alf  fidgeted,  jerking  his  head,  and  looking  reck- 
lessly about  him. 


204  NOCTURNE 

"Not  at  all,"  he  grumbled.  "Not  tired,  are 
you?"  Emmy  reassured  him.  "What  I  mean, 
I'm  very  glad.  .  .  .  Now,  look  here,  Em.  May 
as  well  have  it  out.  ..."  Emmy's  heart  gave  a 
bound:  she  walked  mechanically  beside  him,  her 
head  as  stiffly  held  as  though  the  muscles  of  her 
neck  had  been  paralysed.  ' '  May  as  well,  er  .  .  . 
have  it  out,"  repeated  Alf.  "That's  how  I  am — 
I  like  to  be  all  shipshape  from  the  start.  When  I 
came  along  this  evening  I  did  mean  to  ask  young 
Jen  to  go  with  me.  That  was  quite  as  you 
thought.  I  never  thought  you'd,  you  know,  care 
to  come  with  me.  I  don't  know  why;  but  there 
it  is.  I  never  meant  to  put  it  like  I  did  ...  in 
that  way  ...  to  have  a  fuss  and  upset  any- 
body. I've  ...  I  mean,  she's  been  out  with  me 
half-a-dozen  times;  and  so  I  sort  of  naturally 
thought  of  her. ' ' 

"Of  course,"  agreed  Emmy.    "Of  course." 

1 1  But  I  'm  glad  you  came, ' '  Alf  said.  Something 
in  his  honesty,  and  the  brusqueness  of  his  rejoic- 
ing, touched  Emmy,  and  healed  her  first  wound — 
the  thought  that  she  might  have  been  unwelcome 
to  him.  They  went  on  a  little  way,  more  at 
ease;  both  ready  for  the  next  step  in  in- 
timacy which  was  bound  to  be  taken  by  one  of 
them. 

"I  thought  she  might  have  said  something  to 
you — about  me  not  wanting  to  come,"  Emmy  pro- 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  205 

ceeded,  tentatively.  "Made  you  think  I  never 
wanted  to  go  out." 

Alf  shook  his  head.  Emmy  had  there  no  open- 
ing for  her  resentment. 

"No,"  he  said,  with  stubborn  loyalty.  " She's 
always  talked  very  nice  about  you." 

"What  does  she  say?"  swiftly  demanded 
Emmy. 

"I  forget.  .  .  Saying  you  had  a  rough  time 
at  home.  Saying  it  was  rough  on  you.  That 
you're  one  of  the  best.  ..." 

"She  said  that?"  gasped  Emmy.  "It's  not 
like  her  to  say  that.  Did  she  really?  She's  so 
touchy  about  me,  generally.  Sometimes,  the  way 
she  goes  on,  anybody 'd  think  I  was  the  miser- 
ablest  creature  in  the  world,  and  always  on  at 
her  about  something.  I'm  not,  you  know;  only 
she  thinks  it.  Well,  I  can't  help  it,  can  I?  If 
you  knew  how  I  have  to  work  in  that  house, 
you'd  be  .  .  .  surprised.  I'm  always  at  it.  The 
way  the  dirt  comes  in — you'd  wonder  where  it 
all  came  from!  And  see,  there's  Pa  and  all. 
She  doesn't  take  that  into  account.  She  gets  on 
all  right  with  him;  but  she  isn't  there  all  day, 
like  I  am.  That  makes  a  difference,  you  know. 
He's  used  to  me.  She's  more  of  a  change  for 
him." 

Alf  was  cordial  in  agreement.  He  was  seeing 
all  the  difference  between  the  sisters.  In  his  heart 


206  NOCTURNE 

there  still  lingered  a  sort  of  cherished  enjoyment 
of  Jenny's  greater  spirit.  Secretly  it  delighted 
him,  like  a  forbidden  joke.  He  felt  that  Jenny — 
for  all  that  he  must  not,  at  this  moment,  mention 
her  name — kept  him  on  the  alert  all  the  time, 
so  that  he  was  ever  in  hazardous  pursuit.  There 
was  something  fascinating  in  such  excitement  as 
she  caused  him.  He  never  knew  what  she  would 
do  or  say  next ;  and  while  that  disturbed  and  dis- 
tressed him  it  also  lacerated  his  vanity  and  pro- 
voked his  admiration.  He  admired  Jenny  more 
than  he  could  ever  admire  Emmy.  But  he  also 
saw  Emmy  as  different  from  his  old  idea  of  her. 
He  had  seen  her  trembling  defiance  early  in  the 
evening,  and  that  had  moved  him  and  made  him 
a  little  afraid  of  her ;  he  had  also  seen  her  flushed 
cheeks  at  the  theatre,  and  Emmy  had  grown  in 
his  eyes  suddenly  younger.  He  could  not  have 
imagined  her  so  cordial,  so  youthful,  so  interested 
in  everything  that  met  her  gaze.  Finally,  he 
found  her  quieter,  more  amenable,  more  truly 
wifely  than  her  sister.  It  was  an  important  point 
in  Alf 's  eyes.  You  had  to  take  into  account — if 
you  were  a  man  of  common  sense — relative  cir- 
cumstances. Devil  was  all  very  well  in  courtship ^ 
but  mischief  in  a  girl  became  contrariness  in  a_ 
domestic  termagant.  That  was  an  idea  that  was 
very  much  in  Alf 's  tHoughts  during  this  walk,  and 
it  lingered  there  like  acquired  wisdom. 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  207 

"Say  she's  going  with  a  sailor?"  he  suddenly 
demanded. 

"So  she  told  me.  I've  never  seen  him.  She 
doesn't  tell  lies,  though." 

"I  thought  you  said  she  did!" 

Emmy  flinched:  she  had  forgotten  the  words 
spoken  in  her  wild  anger,  and  would  have  been 
ashamed  to  account  for  them  in  a  moment  of 
greater  coolness. 

"I  mean,  if  she  says  he's  a  sailor,  that's  true. 
She  told  me  he  was  on  a  ship.  I  suppose  she  met 
him  when  she  was  away  that  time.  She's  been 
very  funny  ever  since.  Not  funny — restless. 
Anything  I've  done  for  her  she's  made  a  fuss.  I 
give  her  a  thorough  good  meal;  and  oh!  there's 
such  a  fuss  about  it.  'Why  don't  we  have  ice 
creams,  and  merangs,  and  wine,  and  grouse,  and 
sturgeon 

"Ph!  Silly  talk!"  said  Alf,  in  contemptuous 
wonder.  *  *  I  mean  to  say  ,  .  .  " 

"Oh,  well:  you  know  what  flighty  girls  are. 
He's  probably  a  swank-pot.  A  steward,  or 
something  of  that  sort.  I  expect  he  has  what's 
left  over,  and  talks  big  about  it.  But  she's  got 
ideas  like  that  in  her  head,  and  she  thinks  she's 
too  good  for  the  likes  of  us.  It's  too  much 
trouble  to  her  to  be  pelite  these  days.  I've  got 
the  fair  sick  of  it,  I  can  tell  you.  And  then  she's 
always  out.  .  .  .  Somebody's  got  to  be  at  home, 


208  'NOCTURNE 

just  to  look  after  Pa  and  keep  the  fire  in.  But 
Jenny — oh  dear  no!  She's  no  sooner  home  than 
she's  out  again.  Can't  rest.  Says  it's  stuffy 
indoors,  and  off  she  goes.  I  don't  see  her  for 
hours.  Well,  I  don't  know  .  .  .  but  if  she  doesn't 
quiet  down  a  bit  she  '11  only  be  making  trouble  for 
herself  later  on.  She  can't  keep  house,  you  know ! 
She  can  scrub;  but  she  can't  cook  so  very  well, 
or  keep  the  place  nice.  She  hasn't  got  the  pa- 
tience. You  think  she's  doing  the  dusting;  and 
you  find  her  groaning  about  what  she'd  do  if 
she  was  rich.  'Yes,'  I  tell  her;  'it's  all  very  well 
to  do  that;  but  you'd  far  better  be  doing  some- 
thing useful/  I  say.  'Instead  of  wasting  your 
time  on  idle  fancies.'  " 

"Very  sensible,"  agreed  Alf,  completely  ab- 
sorbed in  such  a  discourse. 

"She's  trying,  you  know.  You  can't  leave  her 
for  a  minute.  She  says  I'm  stodgy;  but  I  say 
it's  better  to  be  practical  than  flighty.  Don't  you 

IhinFsoT^K  *""" 

"Exackly!"  said  Alf,  in  a  tone  of  the  gravest 
assent.  ' '  Exackly. ' ' 

vi 

"I  mean,"  pursued  Emmy,  "yon  mustjiave _a._ 
little  common-sense.    But  she 's  been  spoilt — she 's 
the  youngest.    I'm  a  little  older  than  she  is  ... 
wiser,  I  say;  but  she  won't  have  it.   ...  And 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  209 

Pa's  always  made  a  fuss  of  her.  Really,  some- 
times, you'd  have  thought  she  was  a  boy.  Rac- 
ing about!  My  word,  such  a  commotion!  And 
then  going  out  to  the  millinery,  and  getting  among 
a  lot  of  other  girls.  You  don't  know  who  they 
are — if  they're  ladies  or  not.  It's  not  a  good 
influence  for  her  .  .  . " 

"She  ought  to  get  out  of  it,"  Alf  said.  To 
Emmy  it  was  a  ghastly  moment. 

"She'll  never  give  it  up,"  she  hurriedly  said. 
"You  know,  it's  in  her  blood.  Off  she  goes! 
And  they  make  a  fuss  of  her.  She  mimics  every- 
body, and  they  laugh  at  it — they  think  it's  funny 
to  mimic  people  who  can't  help  themselves — if 
they  are  a  bit  comic.  So  she  goes ;  and  when  she 
does  come  home  Pa's  so  glad  to  see  a  fresh  face 
that  he  makes  a  fuss  of  her,  too.  And  she  stuffs 
him  up  with  all  sorts  of  tales — things  that  never 
happened — to  keep  him  quiet.  She  says  it  gives 
him  something  to  think  about.  .  .  .  Well,  I 
suppose  it  does.  I  expect  you  think  I'm  very 
unkind  to  say  such  things  about  my  own  sister; 
but  really  I  can't  help  seeing  what's  under  my 
nose ;  and  I  sometimes  get  so — you  know,  worked 
up,  that  I  don't  know  how  to  hold  myself.  She 
doesn't  understand  what  it  is  to  be  cooped  up 
indoors  all  day  long,  like  I  am;  and  it  never 
occurs  to  her  to  say  'Go  along,  Em;  you 
run  out  for  a  bit.'  I  have  to  say  to  her: 


210  NOCTURNE 

'You  be  in  for  a  bit,  Jen?*  and  then  she 
p 'tends  she's  always  in.  And  then  there's  a 
rumpus.  ..." 

Alf  was  altogether  subdued  by  this  account :  it 
had  that  degree  of  intimacy  which,  when  one  is 
in  a  sentimental  mood,  will  always  be  absorbing. 
He  felt  that  he  really  was  getting  to  the  bottom 
of  the  mystery  known  to  him  as  Jenny  Blanchard. 
The  picture  had  verisimilitude.  He  could  see 
Jenny  as  he  listened.  He  was  seeing  her  with  the 
close  and  searching  eye  of  a  sister,  as  nearly  true, 
he  thought,  as  any  vision  could  be.  Once  the 
thought,  "I  expect  there's  another  story"  came 
sidling  into  his  head ;  but  it  was  quickly  drowned 
in  further  reminiscence  from  Emmy,  so  that  it 
was  clearly  a  dying  desire  that  he  left  for  Jenny. 
Had  Jenny  been  there,  to  fling  her  gage  into  the 
field,  Alf  might  gapingly  have  followed  her,  lost 
again  in  admiration  of  her  more  sparkling  tongue 
and  equipments.  But  in  such  circumstances  the 
arraigned  party  is  never  present.  If  Jenny  had 
been  there  the  tale  could  not  have  been  told. 
Emmy's  virtuous  and  destructive  monologue 
would  not  merely  have  been  interrupted :  it  would 
have  been  impossible.  Jenny  would  have  done 
all  the  talking.  The  others,  all  amaze,  would  have 
listened  with  feelings  appropriate  to  each,  though 
with  feelings  in  common  unpleasant  to  be  borne. 

"I  bet  there's  a  rumpus,"  Alf  agreed.    ''Old 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  211 

r 

Jen's  not  one  to  take  a  blow.  She  ups  and  gets 
in  the  first  one."  He  couldn't  help  admiring 
Jenny,  even  yet.  So  he  hastened  to  pretend  that 
he  did  not  admire  her;  out  of  a  kind  of  tact. 
"But  of  course  .  .  .  that's  all  very  well  for  a  bit 
of  sport,  but  it  gets  a  bit  wearisome  after  a  time. 
I  know  what  you  mean.  .  .  . " 

"Don't  think  I've  been  complaining  about  her," 
Emmy  said.  "I  wouldn't.  Really,  I  wouldn't. 
Only  I  do  think  sometimes  it's  not  quite  fair  that 
she  should  have  all  the  fun,  and  me  none  of  it. 
I  don't  want  a  lot.  My  tastes  are  very  simple. 
But  when  it  comes  to  none  at  all — well,  Alf,  what 
do  you  think?" 

"It's  a  bit  thick,"  admitted  Alf.  And  that's 
a  fact." 

' '  See,  she 's  always  having  her  own  way.  Does 
just  what  she  likes.  There 's  no  holding  her. ' ' 

"Wants  a  man  to  do  that,"  ruminated  Alf,  with 
a  half  chuckle.  "Eh!" 

"Well,"  said  Emmy,  a  little  brusquely.  "I 
pity  the  man  who  tries  it  on." 

vii 

Emmy  was  not  deliberately  trying  to  secure 
from  Alf  a  proposal  of  marriage.  She  was  try- 
ing to  show  him  the  contrast  between  Jenny  and 
herself,  and  to  readjust  the  balances  as  he  ap- 
peared to  have  been  holding  them.  She  wanted 


212  NOCTURNE 

to  impress  him.  She  was  as  innocent  of  any  other 
intention  as  any  girl  could  have  been.  It  was 
jealousy  that  spoke;  not  scheme.  And  she  was 
perfectly  sincere  in  her  depreciation  of  Jenny. 
She  could  not  understand  what  it  was  that  made 
the  admiring  look  come  into  the  faces  of  those 
who  spoke  to  Jenny,  nor  why  the  unwilling  admi- 
ration that  started  into  her  own  heart  should  ever 
find  a  place  there.  She  was  baffled  by  character, 
and  she  was  engaged  in  the  common  task  of  re- 
arranging life  to  suit  her  own  temperament. 

They  had  been  walking  for  some  little  distance 
now  along  deserted  streets,  the  moon  shining  upon 
them,  their  steps  softly  echoing,  and  Emmy's  arm 
as  warm  as  toast.  It  was  like  a  real  lover's  walk, 
she  could  not  help  thinking,  half  in  the  shadow 
and  wholly  in  the  stillness  of  the  quiet  streets. 
She  felt  very  contented;  and  with  her  long  ac- 
count of  Jenny  already  uttered,  and  her  tough 
body  already  reanimated  by  the  walk,  Emmy  was 
at  leisure  to  let  her  mind  wander  among  sweeter 
things.  There  was  love,  for  example,  to  think 
about;  and  when  she  glanced  sideways  Alf's 
shoulder  seemed  such  a  little  distance  from  her 
cheek.  And  his  hand  was  lightly  clasping  her 
wrist.  A  strong  hand,  was  Alf 's,  with  a  broad 
thumb  and  big  capable  fingers.  She  could  see  it 
in  the  moonlight,  and  she  had  suddenly  an  ex- 
traordinary longing  to  press  her  cheek  against 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  213 

the  back  of  Alf's  hand.  She  did  not  want  any 
silly  nonsense,  she  told  herself;  and  the  tears 
came  into  her  eyes,  and  her  nose  seemed  pinched 
and  tickling  with  the  cold  at  the  mere  idea  of 
any  nonsense;  but  she  could  not  help  longing 
with  the  most  intense  longing  to  press  her  cheek 
against  the  back  of  Alf' s  hand.  That  was  alL  She 
wanted  nothing  more.  But  that  desire  thrilled 
her.  She  felt  that  if  it  might  be  granted  she  would 
be  content,  altogether  happy.  She  wanted  so  little ! 

And  as  if  Alf  too  had  been  thinking  of  somebody 
nearer  to  him  than  Jenny,  he  began : 

"I  don't  know  if  you've  ever  thought  at  all 
about  me,  Em.  But  your  saying  what  you've 
done  .  .  .  about  yourself  .  .  .it's  made  me  think 
a  bit.  I'm  all  on  my  own  now — have  been  for 
years;  but  the  way  I  live  isn*t  good  for  anyone. 
It's  a  fact  it's  not.  I  mean  to  say,  my  rooms 
that  IVe  got  .  .  .  they're  not  big  enough  to  swing 
a  cat  in;  and  the  way  the  old  girl  at  my  place 
serves  up  the  meals  is  a  fair  knock-out,  if  you 
notice  things  like  I  do.  If  I  think  of  her,  and 
then  about  the  way  you  do  things,  it  gives  me  the 
hump.  Everything  you  do's  so  nice.  But  with 
her — the  plates  have  still  got  bits  of  yesterday's 
mustard  on  them,  and  all  fluffy  from  the  dish- 
cloth ..." 

"Not  washed  prop'ly."  Emmy  interestedly 
remarked;  "that's  what  that  is." 


214  NOCTURNE 

"Exackly.  And  the  meat's  raw  inside.  Cooks 
it  too  quickly.  And  when  I  have  a  bloater  for  my 
breakfast — I'm  partial  to  a  bloater — it's  black 
outside,  as  if  it  was  done  in  the  cinders ;  and  then 
inside — well,  I  like  them  done  all  through,  like  any 
other  man.  Then  I  can't  get  her  to  get  me  gam- 
mon rashers.  She  will  get  these  little  tiddy  rash- 
ers, with  little  white  bones  in  them.  Why,  while 
you're  cutting  them  out  the  bacon  gets  cold.  You 
may  think  I'm  fussy  .  .  .  fiddly  with  my  food. 
I'm  not,  really;  only  I  like  it  .  .  ;fl 

"Of  course  you  do,"  Emmy  said.  "She's  not 
interested,  that's  what  it  is.  She  thinks  any- 
thing's  food;  and  some  people  don't  mind  at  all 
what  they  eat.  They  don't  notice." 

"No.  I  do.  If  you  go  to  a  restaurant  you  get 
it  different.  You  get  more  of  it,  too.  Well,  what 
with  one  thing  and  another  I've  got  very  fed  up 
with  Madame  Bucks.  It's  all  dirty  and  half 
baked.  There's  great  holes  in  the  carpet  of  my 
sitting-room — holes  you  could  put  your  foot 
through.  And  I've  done  {hat,  as  a  matter  of  fact. 
Put  my  foot  through  and  nearly  gone  over. 
Should  have  done,  only  for  the  table.  Well,  I 
mean  to  say  .  .  .  you  can't  help  being  fed  up 
with  it.  But  she  knows  where  I  work,  and  I  know 
she's  hard  up ;  so  I  don't  like  to  go  anywhere  else, 
because  if  anybody  asked  me  if  he  should  go 
there,  I  couldn't  honestly  recommend  him  to;  and 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  215 

yet,  you  see  how  it  is,  I  shouldn't  like  to  leave  her 
iu  the  lurch,  if  she  knew  I  was  just  gone  some- 
where else  down  the  street. " 

"No,"  sympathetically  agreed  Emmy.  "I 
quite  see.  It's  very  awkward  for  you.  Though 
it's  no  use  being  too  kind-hearted  with  these  peo- 
ple; because  they  don't  appreciate  it;  and  if  you 
don't  say  anything  they  just  go  on  in  the  same 
way,  never  troubling  themselves  about  you.  They 
think,  as  long  as  you  don't  say  anything  you're 
all  right;  and  it's  not  their  place  to  make  any 
alteration.  They're  quite  satisfied.  Look  at 
Jenny  and  me." 

"Is  she  satisfied?"  asked  Alf. 

"With  herself,  she  is.  She's  never  satisfied 
with  me.  She  never  tries  to  see  it  from  my  point 
of  view." 

"No,"  Alf  nodded  his  head  wisely.  "That's 
what  it  is.  They  don't."  He  nodded  again. 

"Isn't  it  a  lovely  night,"  ventured  Emmy. 
"See  the  moon  over  there." 

They  looked  up  at  the  moon  and  the  stars  and 
the  unfathomable  sky.  It  took  them  at  once  away 
from  the  streets  and  the  subject  of  their  talk. 
Both  sighed  as  they  stared  upwards,  lost  in  the 
beauty  before  them.  And  when  at  last  their  eyes 
dropped,  the  street  lamps  had  become  so  yellow 
and  tawdry  that  they  were  like  stupid  spangles  in 
contrast  with  the  stars.  Alf  still  held  Emmy's 


216  NOCTURNE 

arm  so  snugly  within  his  own,  and  her  wrist  was 
within  the  clasp  of  his  fingers.  It  was  so  little 
a  thing  to  slide  his  fingers  into  a  firm  clasp  of 
her  hand,  and  they  drew  closer. 

"Lovely,  eh!**  Alf  ejaculated,  with  a  further 
upward  lift  of  his  eyes.  Emmy  sighed  again. 

"Not  like  down  here,"  she  soberly  said. 

"No,  it's  different.  Down  here's  all  right, 
though,"  Alf  assured  her.  "Don't  you  think  it 
is?"  He  gave  a  rather  nervous  little  half  laugh. 
"Don't  you  think  it  is?" 

"Grand!"  Emmy  agreed,  with  the  slightest 
hint  of  dryness. 

"I  say,  it  was  awfully  good  of  you  to  come 
to-night,"  said  Alf.  "I've  .  .  .  you've  enjoyed 
it,  haven't  you?"  He  was  looking  sharply  at 
her,  and  Emmy's  face  was  illumined.  He  saw 
her  soft  cheeks,  her  thin,  soft  little  neck;  he  felt 
her  warm  gloved  hand  within  his  own.  "D'you 
mind?"  he  asked,  and  bent  abruptly  so  that  their 
faces  were  close  together.  For  a  moment,  feel- 
ing so  daring  that  his  breath  caught,  Alf  could 
not  carry  out  his  threat.  Then,  roughly,  he 
pushed  his  face  against  hers,  kissing  her.  Quickly 
he  released  Emmy's  arm,  so  that  his  own  might 
be  more  protectingly  employed;  and  they  stood 
embraced  in  the  moonlight. 

viii 
It  was  only  for  a  minute,  for  Emmy,  with  in- 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  217 

stinctive  secrecy,  drew  away  into  the  shadow. 
At  first  Alf  did  not  understand,  and  thought  him- 
self repelled;  but  Emmy's  hands  were  invitingly 
raised.  The  first  delight  was  broken.  One  more 
sensitive  might  have  found  it  hard  to  recapture ; 
but  Alf  stepped  quickly  to  her  side  in  the  shadow, 
and  they  kissed  again.  He  was  surprised  at  her 
passion.  He  had  not  expected  it,  and  the  flattery 
was  welcome.  He  grinned  a  little  in  the  safe 
darkness,  consciously  and  even  sheepishly,  but 
with  eagerness.  They  were  both  clumsy  and  a 
little  trembling,  not  very  practised  lovers,  but 
curious  and  excited.  Emmy  felt  her  hat  knocked 
a  little  sideways  upon  her  head. 

It  was  Emmy  who  moved  first,  drawing  herself 
away  from  him,  she  knew  not  why. 

"Where  you  going?"  asked  Alf,  detaining  her. 
"What  is  it?  Too  rough,  am  If"  He  could  not 
see  Emmy's  shaken  head,  and  was  for  a  moment 
puzzled  at  the  ways  of  woman — so  far  from  his 
grasp. 

"No,"  Emmy  said.    "It's  wonderful." 

Peering  closely,  Alf  could  see  her  eyes  shining. 

"D'you  think  you're  fond  enough  of  me, 
Emmy?"  She  demurred. 

"That's  a  nice  thing  to  say!  As  if  it 
was  for  me  to  tell  you!"  she  whispered  archly 
back. 

"What  ought  I  to  say?    I'm  not  .   .  .  mean  to 


218  NOCTURNE 

say,  I  don't  know  how  to  say  things,  Einmy. 
You'll  have  to  put  up  with  my  rough  ways.  Give 
us  a  kiss,  old  sport." 

"How  many  more!  You  are  a  one!"  Emmy 
was  not  pliant  enough.  ID  her  voice  there  waa 
the  faintest  touch  of — something  that  was  not  self- 
consciousness,  that  was  perhaps  a  sense  of  failure. 
Perhaps  she  was  back  again  suddenly  into  her 
maturity,  finding  it  somehow  ridiculous  to  be 
kissed  and  to  kiss  with  such  abandon.  Alf  was 
not  baffled,  however.  As  she  withdrew  he  ad- 
vanced, so  that  his  knuckle  rubbed  against  the 
brick  wall  to  which  Emmy  had  retreated. 

"I  say,"  he  cried  sharply.  "Here's  the  wall." 
"Hurt  yourself?"  Emmy  quickly  caught  his 
hand  and  raised  it,  examining  the  knuckle.  The 
skin  might  have  been  roughened;  but  no  blood 
was  drawn.  Painfully,  exultingly,  her  dream 
realised,  she  pressed  her  cheek  against  the  back 
of  his  hand. 

ix 

"What's  that  for?"  demanded  Alf. 
"Nothing.    Never  you  mind.    I  wanted  to  do 

it."    Emmy's  cheeks  were  hot  as  she  spoke;  but 

Alf  marvelled  at  the  action,  and  at  her  confession 

of  such  an  impulse. 

"How  long  had  you  .    .    .  wanted  to  do  it?" 
"Mind  your  own  business.    The  idea!    Dont 

you  know  better  than  that?"  Emmy  asked.     It 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  219 

made  him  chuckle  delightedly  to  have  such  a  re- 
tort from  her.    And  it  stimulated  his  curiosity. 

"I  believe  you're  a  bit  fond  of  me,"  he  said. 
"I  don't  see  why.  There's  nothing  about  me  to 
write  home  about,  I  shouldn't  think.  But  there 
it  is :  love 's  a  wonderful  thing. ' ' 

' '  Is  it  ? "  asked  Emma,  distantly.  Why  couldn  't 
he  say  he  loved  her!  Too  proud,  was  he?  Or 
was  he  shy?  He  had  only  used  the  word  "love" 
once,  and  that  was  in  this  general  sense — as 
though  there  was  such  a  thing.  Emmy  was  shy 
of  the  word,  too;  but  not  as  shy  as  that.  She 
was  for  a  moment  anxious,  because  she  wanted 
him  to  say  the  word,  or  some  equivalent.  If  it 
was  not  said,  she  was  dependent  upon  his  charity 
later,  and  would  cry  sleeplessly  at  night  for  want 
of  sureness  of  him. 

"D'you  love  me?"  she  suddenly  said.  Alf 
whistled.  He  seemed  for  that  instant  to  be  quite 
taken  aback  by  her  inquiry.  "There's  no  harm 
in  me  asking,  I  suppose."  Into  Emmy's  voice 
there  came  a  thread  of  roughness. 

"No  harm  at  all,"  Alf  politely  said.  "Not  at 
all. ' '  He  continued  to  hesitate. 

"Well?"  Emmy  waited,  still  in  his  arms,  her 
ears  alert. 

"We're  engaged,  aren't  we?"  Alf  muttered 
shamefacedly.  "Erum  .  .  .  what  sort  of  ring 
would  you  like?  I  don't  say  you'll  get  it  ... 


220  NOCTURNE 

and  it's  too  late  to  go  and  choose  one  to-night." 

Emmy  flushed  again :  he  felt  her  tremble. 

"You  are  in  a  hurry,"  she  said,  too  much 
moved  for  her  archness  to  take  effect. 

"Yes,  I  am."  Alf 's  quick  answer  was  reassur- 
ing enough.  Emmy's  heart  was  eased.  She  drew 
him  nearer  with  her  arms  about  his  neck,  and 
they  kissed  again. 

"I  wish  you'd  say  you  love  me,"  she  whispered. 
"Mean  such  a  lot  to  me." 

1 '  No ! "  cried  Alf  incredulously.    * '  Really  ? ? ' 

"Do  you?" 

"I'll  think  about  it.    Do  you — me?" 

"Yes.    I  don't  mind  saying  it  if  you  will." 

Alf  gave  a  little  whistle  to  himself,  half  under 
his  breath.  He  looked  carefully  to  right  and 
left,  and  up  at  the  house-wall  against  which  they 
were  standing.  Nobody  seemed  to  be  in  danger 
of  making  him  feel  an  abject  fool  by  overhearing 
such  a  confession  as  he  was  invited  to  make ;  and 
yet  it  was  such  a  terrible  matter.  He  was  con- 
fronted with  a  difficulty  of  difficulties.  He  looked 
at  Emmy,  and  knew  that  she  was  waiting,  en- 
treating him  with  her  shining  eyes. 

"Er,"  said  Alf,  reluctantly  and  with  misgiving. 
"Er  .  .  .  well,  I  ...  a  ...  suppose  I  do  .  .  ." 

Emmy  gave  a  little  cry,  that  was  half  a  smoth- 
ered laugh  of  happiness  at  her  triumph.  It  was 
not  bad !  She  had  made  him  admit  it  on  the  first 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  221 

evening.    Later,  when  she  was  more  at  ease,  he 
should  be  more  explicit. 


"Well,"  said  Alf,  instantly  regretting  his  ad- 
mission, and  inclined  to  bluster.  "Now  I  sup- 
pose you're  satisfied?" 

"Awfully!"  breathed  Emmy.  "You're  a  dear 
good  soul.  You're  splendid,  Alf !" 

For  a  few  minutes  more  they  remained  in  that 
benign,  unforgettable  shadow;  and  then,  very 
slowly,  with  Alf 's  arm  about  Emmy's  waist,  and 
Emmy's  shoulder  so  confidingly  against  his 
breast,  they  began  to  return  homewards.  Both 
spoke  very  subduedly,  and  tried  to  keep  their 
shoes  from  too  loudly  striking  the  pavement  as 
they  walked ;  and  the  wandering  wind  came  upon 
them  in  glee  round  every  corner  and  rustled  like 
a  busybody  among  all  the  consumptive  bushes  in 
the  front  gardens  they  passed.  Sounds  carried 
far.  A  long  way  away  they  heard  the  tramcars 
grinding  along  the  main  road.  But  here  all  was 
hush,  and  the  beating  of  two  hearts  in  unison; 
and  to  both  of  them  happiness  lay  ahead.  Their 
aims  were  similar,  in  no  point  jarring  or  di- 
vergent. Both  wanted  a  home,  and  loving  labour, 
and  quiet  evenings  of  pleasant  occupation.  To 
both  the  daily  work  came  with  regularity,  not  as 
an  intrusion  or  a  wrong  to  manhood  and  woman- 


222  NOCTURNE 

hood;  it  was  inevitable,  and  was  regarded  as  in- 
evitable. Neither  Emmy  nor  Alf  ever  wondered 
why  they  should  be  working  hard  when  the  sun 
shone  and  the  day  was  fine.  Neither  compared 
the  lot  accorded  by  station  with  an  ideal  fortune 
of  blessed  ease.  They  were  not  temperamentally 
restless.  They  both  thought,  with  a  practical 
sense  that  is  as  convenient  as  it  is  generally  ac- 
cepted, "somebody  must  do  the  work:  may  as 
well  be  me. ' '  No  discontent  would  be  theirs.  And 
Alf  was  a  good  worker  at  the  bench,  a  sober  and 
honest  man;  and  Emmy  could  make  a  pound  go 
as  far  as  any  other  woman  in  Kennington  Park. 
They  had  before  them  a  faithful  future  of  work 
in  common,  of  ideals  (workaday  ideals)  in  com- 
mon; and  at  this  instant  they  were  both  marvel- 
lously content  with  the  immediate  outlook.  Not 
for  them  to  change  the  order  of  the  world. 

"I  feel  it's  so  suitable, "  Emmy  startlingly  said, 
in  a  hushed  tone,  as  they  walked.    "Your  .   ..  ,| 
you  know  .  .  .  l supposing  you  do*  .  .  .  me;  and 
me  .  .  .  doing  the  same  for  you." 

Alf  looked  solemnly  round  at  her.  His  Emmy 
skittish?  It  was  not  what  he  had  thought.  Still, 
it  diverted  him ;  and  he  ambled  in  pursuit. 

"Yes,"  he  darkly  said.  "What  do  you  'sup- 
pose you  do '  for  me  ? ' ' 

"Why,  love  you,"  Emmy  hurried  to  explain, 
trapping  herself  by  speed  into  the  use  of  the 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  223 

tabooed  word.  "Didn't  you  know?  Though  it 
seems  funny  to  say  it  like  that.  It's  so  new. 
I've  never  dared  to  ...  you  know  .  .  .  say  it. 
I  mean,  we're  both  of  us  quiet,  and  reliable  .  .  . 
we're  not  either  of  us  nighty,  I  mean.  That's 
why  I  think  we  suit  each  other — better  than  if 
we'd  been  different.  Not  like  we  are." 

"I'm  sure  we  do,"  Alf  said. 

"Not  like  some  people.  You  can't  help  wonder- 
ing to  yourself  however  they  came  to  get  mar- 
ried. They  seem  so  unlike.  Don't  they!  It's 
funny.  Ah  well,  love 's  a  wonderful  thing — as  you 
say!"  She  turned  archly  to  him,  encouragingly. 

"You  seem  happy,"  remarked  Alf,  in  a  critical 
tone.  But  he  was  not  offended ;  only  tingled  into 
desire  for  her  by  the  strange  gleam  of  merriment 
crossing  her  natural  seriousness,  the  jubilant  note 
of  happy  consciousness  that  the  evening's  love- 
making  had  bred.  Alf  drew  her  more  closely  to 
his  side,  increasingly  sure  that  he  had  done  well. 
She  was  beginning  to  intrigue  him.  With  an 
emotion  that  startled  himself  as  much  as  it  de- 
lighted Emmy,  he  said  thickly  in  her  ear,  ' '  D  'you 
love  me  ...  like  thist" 

xi 

They  neared  the  road*  in  which  the  Blancharda 
lived:  Emmy  began  to  press  forward  as  Alf 
seemed  inclined  to  loiter.  In  the  neighbourhood 


224  NOCTURNE 

the  church  that  had  struck  eight  as  they  left  the 
house  began  once  again  to  record  an  hour. 

"By  George!"  cried  Alf.  "Twelve.  .  .  .  Mid- 
night!" They  could  feel  the  day  pass. 

They  were  at  the  corner,  beside  the  little  chand- 
ler's shop  which  advertised  to  the  moon  its  varie- 
ties of  tea;  and  Alf  paused  once  again. 

1 1  Half  a  tick, ' '  he  said.    ' '  No  hurry,  is  there  f ' ' 

"You'll  come  in  for  a  bit  of  supper,"  Emmy 
urged.  Then,  plumbing  his  hesitation,  she  went 
on,  in  a  voice  that  had  steel  somewhere  in  its 
depths.  ' ' They  '11  both  be  gone  to  bed.  She  won't 
be  there." 

"Oh,  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  Alf  declared, 
with  unconvincing  nonchalance. 

"I'll  give  you  a  drop  of  Pa's  beer,"  Emmy  said 
drily. 

She  took  out  a  key,  and  held  it  up  for  his  in- 
spection. 

"I  say!"  Alf  pretended  to  be  surprised  at  the 
sight  of  a  key. 

"Quite  a  big  girl,  aren't  1\  "Well,  you  see: 
there  are  two,  and  Pa  never  goes  out.  So  we 
have  one  each.  Saves  a  lot  of  bother."  As  she 
spoke  Emmy  was  unlocking  the  door  and  entering 
the  house.  "See,  you  can  have  supper  with  me, 
and  then  it  won't  seem  so  far  to  walk  home.  And 
you  can  throw  Madame  Buck's  rinds  at  the  back 
of  the  fire.  You'll  like  that;  and  so  will  she." 


AFTER  THE  THEATRE  225 

Alf ,  now  perfectly  docile,  and  even  thrilled  with 
pleasure  at  the  idea  of  being  with  her  for  a  little 
while  longer,  followed  Emmy  into  the  passage, 
where  the  flickering  gas  showed  too  feeble  a  light 
to  be  of  any  service  to  them.  Between  the  two 
walls  they  felt  their  way  into  the  house,  and  Alf 
softly  closed  the  door. 

"Hang  your  hat  and  coat  on  the  stand,"  whis- 
pered Emmy,  and  went  tiptoeing  forward  to  the 
kitchen.  It  was  in  darkness.  "Oo,  she  is  a 
monkey!  She's  let  the  fire  out,"  Emmy  con- 
tinued, in  the  same  whisper.  "Have  you  got  a 
match?  The  gas  is  out."  She  opened  the  kitchen 
door  wide,  and  stood  there  taking  off  her  hat, 
while  Alf  fumbled  his  way  along  the  passage. 
"Be  quick,"  she  said. 

Alf  pretended  not  to  be  able  to  find  the  matches, 
so  that  he  might  give  her  a  hearty  kiss  in  the 
darkness.  He  was  laughing  to  himself  because 
he  had  only  succeeded,  in  his  random  venture,  in 
kissing  her  chin;  and  then,  when  she  broke  away 
with  a  smothered  protest  and  a  half  laugh, 
he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  again  for  the 
match-box.  The  first  match  fizzed  along  the 
box  as  it  was  struck,  and  immediately  went 
out. 

"Oh,  do  hurry  up!"  cried  Emmy  in  a  whisper, 
thinking  he  was  still  sporting  with  her.  "Don't 
keep  on  larking  about,  Alf!" 


226  NOCTURNE 

"I'm  not!"  indignantly  answered  the  delin- 
quent. "It  wouldn't  strike.  Half  a  tick!" 

He  moved  forward  in  the  darkness,  to  be  nearer 
the  gas;  and  as  he  took  the  step  his  foot  caught 
against  something  upon  the  floor.  He  exclaimed. 

"Now  what  is  it?"  demanded  Emmy.  For 
answer  Alf  struck  his  match,  and  they  both  looked 
at  the  floor  by  Alf 's  feet.  Emmy  gave  a  startled 
cry  and  dropped  to  her  knees. 

"Hul-lo!"  said  Alf;  and  with  his  lighted  match 
raised  he  moved  to  the  gas,  stepping,  as  he  did 
so,  over  the  body  of  Pa  Blanchard,  which  was 
lying  at  full  length  across  the  kitchen  floor. 


CHAPTER  XII:  CONSEQUENCES 


IN  the  succeeding  quietness,  Emmy  fumbled  at 
the  old  man's  hands;  then  quickly  at  his  breast, 
near  the  heart.  Trembling  violently,  she  looked 
up  at  Alf,  as  if  beseeching  his  aid.  He  too  knelt, 
and  Emmy  took  Pa's  lolling  head  into  her  lap,  as 
though  by  her  caress  she  thought  to  restore  colour 
and  life  to  the  features.  The  two  discoverers  did 
not  speak  nor  reason :  they  were  wholly  occupied 
with  the  moment's  horror.  At  last  Alf  said,  al- 
most in  a  whisper : 

"I  think  it  'sail  right.  He 's  hit  his  head.  Feel 
his  head,  and  see  if  it's  bleeding." 

Emmy  withdrew  one  hand.  A  finger  was 
faintly  smeared  with  blood.  She  shuddered, 
looking  in  horror  at  the  colour  against  her  hand ; 
and  Alf  nodded  sharply  at  seeing  his  supposition 
verified.  His  eye  wandered  from  the  insensible 
body,  to  a  chair,  to  the  open  cupboard,  to  the 
topmost  shelf  of  the  cupboard.  Emmy  followed 
his  glance  point  by  point,  and  in  conclusion  they 
looked  straight  into  each  other's  eyes,  with  per- 
fect understanding.  Alf 's  brows  arched. 

"Get    some    water  —  quick!"    Emmy    cried 

227 


228  NOCTURNE 

sharply.  She  drew  her  handkerchief  from  her 
breast  as  Alf  returned  with  a  jugful  of  water; 
and,  having  folded  it,  she  dangled  the  kerchief  in 
the  jug. 

"Slap  it  on!"  urged  Alf.  "He  can't  feel  it, 
you  know.'* 

So  instructed,  Emmy  first  of  all  turned  Pa's 
head  to  discover  the  wound,  and  saw  that  her 
skirt  was  already  slightly  stained  by  the  oozing 
blood.  With  her  wetted  handkerchief  she  gently 
wiped  the  blood  from  Pa's  hair.  It  was  still  quite 
moist,  and  more  blood  flowed  at  the  touch.  That 
fact  made  her  realise  instinctively  that  the  acci- 
dent, the  stages  of  which  had  been  indicated  by 
Alf 's  wandering  glances,  had  happened  within  a 
few  minutes  of  their  arrival.  When  Alf  took  the 
jug  and  threw  some  of  its  contents  upon  the  old 
man's  grey  face,  splashing  her,  she  made  an  im- 
patient gesture  of  protest. 

"No,  no!"  she  cried.    "It's  all  over  me!" 

"Been  after  his  beer,  he  has,"  Alf  unneces- 
sarily explained.  "That's  what  it  is.  Got  up  on 
the  chair,  and  fell  off  it,  trying  to  get  at  it.  Bad 
boy!" 

As  she  did  not  answer,  from  the  irritation 
caused  by  nervous  apprehensiveness,  he  soaked 
his  own  handkerchief  and  began  to  slap  it  across 
Pa's  face,  until  the  jug  was  empty.  Alf  thought- 
fully sprinkled  the  last  drops  from  it  so  that  they 


CONSEQUENCES  229 

fell  cascading  about  Pa.  He  was  turning  away  to 
refill  the  jug,  when  a  notion  occurred  to  Mm. 

1  *  Any  brandy  in  the  house  ?  "  he  asked.  * '  Ought 
to  have  thought  of  it  before.  Pubs  are  all  closed 
now." 

"See  if  there's  any  ...  up  there."  Emmy 
pointed  vaguely  upwards.  She  was  bent  over 
Pa,  gently  wiping  the  trickles  of  water  from  his 
ghastly  face,  caressing  with  her  wet  handkerchief 
the  closed  eyes  and  the  furrowed  brow. 

Alf  climbed  upon  the  chair  from  which  Pa  had 
fallen,  and  reached  his  hand  round  to  the  back 
of  the  high  shelf,  feeling  for  whatever  was  there. 
With  her  face  upturned,  Emmy  watched  and 
listened.  She  heard  a  very  faint  clink,  as  if  two 
small  bottles  had  been  knocked  together,  and  then 
a  little  dump,  as  if  one  of  them  had  fallen  over. 

"Glory!"  said  Alf,  still  in  the  low  voice  that 
he  had  used  earlier.  "Believe  I've  got  it!" 

"Got  it?  Is  there  any  in  it?"  Emmy  at  the 
same  instant  was  asking. 

Alf  was  sniffing  at  the  little  bottle  which  he  had 
withdrawn  from  the  cupboard.  He  then  de- 
scended carefully  from  the  chair,  and  held  the 
uncorked  bottle  under  her  nose,  for  a  corrobora- 
tive sniff.  It  was  about  half  full  of  brandy.  Sat- 
isfied, he  knelt  as  before,  now  trying,  however,  to 
force  Pa's  teeth  apart,  and  rubbing  some  of  the 
brandy  upon  the  parted  lips. 


230  NOCTURNE 

"This '11  do  it  I"  Alf  cheerfully  and  reassur- 
ingly cried.  "Half  a  tick.  I'll  get  some  water 
to  wet  his  head  again."  He  stumbled  once  more 
out  into  the  scullery,  and  the  careful  Emmy  un- 
consciously flinched  as  she  heard  the  jug  struck 
hard  in  the  darkness  against  the  tap.  Her  eye 
was  fixed  upon  the  jug  as  it  was  borne  brimming 
and  splashing  back  to  her  side.  She  could  not 
help  feeling  such  housewifely  anxiety  even  amid 
the  tremors  of  her  other  acute  concern.  As  Alf 
knelt  he  lavishly  sprinkled  some  more  water  upon 
Pa's  face,  and  set  the  jug  ready  to  Emmy's  hand, 
working  with  a  quiet  deftness  that  aroused  her 
watchful  admiration.  He  was  here  neither  clumsy 
nor  rough:  if  his  methods  were  as  primitive  as 
the  means  at  hand  his  gentle  treatment  of  the 
senseless  body  showed  him  to  be  adaptable  to  an 
emergency.  How  she  loved  him !  Pride  gleamed 
in  Emmy's  eyes.  She  could  see  in  him  the  eternal 
handy-man  of  her  delight,  made  for  husband- 
hood  and  as  clearly  without  nonsense  as  any 
working  wife  could  have  wished. 

Pa's  nightshirt  was  blackened  with  great 
splashes  of  water,  and  the  soaked  parts  clung 
tightly  to  his  breast.  At  the  neck  it  was  already 
open,  and  they  both  thought  they  could  see  at 
this  moment  a  quick  contraction  of  the  throat. 
An  additional  augury  was  found  in  the  fact  that 
Alf  simultaneously  had  succeeded  in  dribbling 


CONSEQUENCES  231 

some  of  the  brandy  between  Pa's  teeth,  and  al- 
though some  of  it  ran  out  at  the  corners  of  his 
mouth  and  out  on  to  his  cheeks,  some  also  was 
retained  and  would  help  to  revive  him.  Alf  gave 
another  quick  nod,  this  time  one  of  satisfaction. 

"Feel  his  heart!"  Emmy  whispered.  He  did 
so.  "Can  you  feel  it!" 

"It's  all  right.    Famous!" 

Pa  gave  a  little  groan.  He  seemed  to  stir. 
Emmy  felt  his  shoulders  move  against  her  knees ; 
and  she  looked  quickly  up,  a  faint  relieved  smile 
crossing  her  anxious  face.  Then,  as  Alf  returned 
her  glance,  his  eyes  became  fixed,  and  he  looked 
beyond  her  and  up  over  her  head.  Jenny  stood 
in  the  doorway,  fully  dressed,  but  without  either 
hat  or  coat,  her  face  blanched  at  the  picture  be- 
fore her. 

ii 

To  Jenny,  coming  with  every  precautionary 
quietness  into  the  house,  the  sight  came  as  the 
greatest  shock.  She  found  the  kitchen  door  ajar, 
heard  voices,  and  then  burst  upon  the  three  feebly 
illumined  figures.  Emmy,  still  in  her  out-of-doors 
coat,  knelt  beside  Alf  upon  the  floor ;  and  between 
them,  with  a  face  terribly  grey,  lay  Pa,  still  in 
his  old  red  nightshirt,  with  one  of  his  bare  feet 
showing.  The  stained  shirt,  upon  which  the 
marks  of  water,  looking  in  this  light  perfectly 
black,  might  have  been  those  of  blood,  filled  Jenny 


232  NOCTURNE 

with  horror.  It  was  only  when  she  saw  both 
Emmy  and  Alf  staring  mutely  at  her  that  she 
struggled  against  the  deadly  faintness  that  was 
thickening  a  veil  of  darkness  before  her  eyes.  It 
was  a  dreadful  moment. 

1 '  Hullo  Jen ! "  Alf  said.    * « Look  here ! " 

"I  thought  you  must  be  in  bed,*'  Emmy  mur- 
mured. "Isn't  it  awful!" 

Not  a  suspicion !  Her  heart  felt  as  if  somebody 
had  sharply  pinched  it.  They  did  not  know  she 
had  been  out!  It  made  her  tremble  in  a  sudden 
flurry  of  excited  relief.  She  quickly  came  for- 
ward, bending  over  Pa.  Into  his  cheeks  there  had 
come  the  faintest  wash  of  colour.  His  eyelids 
fluttered.  Jenny  stooped  and  took  his  hand,  quite 
mechanically,  pressing  it  between  hers  and 
against  her  heart.  And  at  that  moment  Pa 's  eyes 
opened  wide,  and  he  stared  up  at  her.  With  Alf 
at  his  side  and  Emmy  behind  him,  supporting  his 
head  upon  her  lap,  Pa  could  see  only  Jenny,  and 
a  twitching  grin  fled  across  his  face — a  grin  of 
loving  recognition.  It  was  succeeded  by  another 
sign  of  recovery,  a  peculiar  fumbling  suggestion 
of  remembered  cunning. 

"Jenny,  my  dearie,"  whispered  Pa,  gaspingly. 
"A  good  .  .  .  boy!"  His  eyes  closed  again. 

Emmy  looked  in  quick  challenge  at  Alf,  as  if  to 
say  "You  see  how  it  is!  She  comes  in  last,  and 
it's  her  luck  that  he  should  see  her.  .  .  .  Always 


CONSEQUENCES  233 

the    same!"      And    Jenny    was    saying,    very 
low: 

"It  looks  to  me  as  if  you'd  been  a  bad  boy!" 
"Can't  be  with  him  all  the  time!"  Emmy  put 
in.  having  reached  a  point  of  general  self-defence 
in  the  course  of  her  mental  explorations.  She  was 
recovering  from  her  shock  and  her  first  horrible 
fears. 

"Shall  we  get  him  to  bed?  Carry  him  back 
in  there?''  Jenny  asked.  "The  floor's  soaking 
wet."  She  had  not  to  receive  any  rebuke: 
Emmy,  although  shaken,  was  reviving  in  happi- 
ness and  in  graciousness  with  each  second's 
diminution  of  her  dread.  She  now  agreed  to  Pa's 
removal;  and  they  all  stumbled  into  his  bedroom 
and  laid  him  upon  his  own  bed.  Alf  went  quickly 
back  again  to  the  kitchen  for  the  brandy;  and 
presently  a  good  dose  of  this  was  sending  its 
thrilling  and  reviving  fire  through  Pa's  person. 
Emmy  had  busied  herself  in  making  a  bandage 
for  his  wounded  head;  and  Jenny  had  arranged 
him  more  comfortably,  drying  his  chest  and  lay- 
ing a  little  towel  between  his  body  and  the  night- 
short  lest  he  should  take  cold.  Pa  was  very  com- 
placently aware  of  these  ministrations,  and  by 
the  time  they  were  in  full  order  completed  he 
was  fast  asleep,  having  expressed  no  sort  of  con- 
trition for  his  naughtiness  or  for  the  alarm  he 
h"d  given  them  all. 


234  NOCTURNE 

Reassured,  the  party  returned  to  the  kitchen. 

iii 

Alf  could  not  now  wait  to  sit  down  to  supper; 
but  he  drank  a  glass  of  beer,  after  getting  it  down 
for  himself  and  rather  humorously  illustrating 
how  Pa's  designs  must  have  been  frustrated.  He 
then,  with  a  quick  handshake  with  Jenny,  hurried 
away. 

"Ill  let  you  out,"  Emmy  said.  There  were 
quick  exchanged  glances.  Jenny  was  left  alone 
in  the  kitchen  for  two  or  three  minutes  until 
Emmy  returned,  humming  a  little  self-consciously, 
and  no  longer  pale. 

" Quite  a  commotion,"  said  Emmy,  with  as- 
sumed ease. 

Jenny  was  looking  at  her,  and  Jenny's  heart 
felt  as  though  it  were  bursting.  She  had  never 
in  her  life  known  such  a  sensation  of  guilt — guilt 
at  the  suppression  of  a  vital  fact.  Yet  above  that 
sense  of  guilt,  which  throbbed  within  all  her  con- 
sciousness, was  a  more  superficial  concern  with 
the  happenings  of  the  moment. 

"  Yes,"  Jenny  said.  "And.  .  .  Had  you  been 
in  long?"  she  asked  quickly. 

"Only  a  minute.  We  found  him  like  that.  We 
didn't  come  straight  home." 

"Oh,"  said  Jenny,  significantly,  though  her 
heart  was  thudding.  "You  didn't  come  straight 


CONSEQUENCES  235 

home."  Emmy's  colour  rose  still  higher.  She 
faltered  slightly,  and  tears  appeared  in  her  eyes. 
She  could  not  explain.  Some  return  of  her 
jealousy,  some  feeling  of  what  Jenny  would 
"think,"  checked  her.  The  communication  must 
be  made  by  other  means  than  words.  The  two 
sisters  eyed  each  other.  They  were  very  near, 
and  Emmy's  lids  were  the  first  to  fall.  Jenny 
stepped  forward,  and  put  a  protective  arm  round 
her;  and  as  if  Emmy  had  been  waiting  for  that 
she  began  smiling  and  crying  at  one  and  the  same 
moment. 

"  Looks  to  me  as  if  .  .  .  "  Jenny  went  on  after 
this  exchange. 

"I'm  sorry  I  was  a  beast,"  Emmy  said.  "I'm 
as  different  as  anything  now." 

"You're  a  dear!"  Jenny  assured  her.  "Never 
mind  about  what  you  said." 

It  was  an  expansive  moment.  Their  hearts 
were  charged.  To  both  the  evening  had  been  the 
one  poignant  moment  of  their  lives,  an  evening 
to  provide  reflections  for  a  thousand  other  even- 
ings. And  Emmy  was  happy,  for  the  first  time 
for  many  days,  with  the  thought  of  happy  life 
before  her.  She  described  in  detail  the  events  of 
the  theatre  and  the  walk.  She  did  not  give  an 
exactly  true  story.  It  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  she  would  do  so.  Jenny  did  not  expect  it. 
She  gave  indications  of  her  happiness,  which  was 


236  NOCTURNE 

her  main  object;  and  she  gave  further  indica- 
tions, less  intentional,  of  her  character,  as  no 
author  can  avoid  doing.  And  Jenny,  immediately 
discounting,  and  in  the  light  of  her  own  tempera- 
ment re-shaping  and  re-proportioning  the  form 
of  Emmy's  narrative,  was  like  the  eternal  critic 
— apprehending  only  what  she  could  personally 
recognise.  But  both  took  pleasure  in  the  tale, 
and  both  saw  forward  into  the  future  a  very  sat- 
isfactory ending  to  Emmy's  romance. 

"And  we  got  back  just  as  twelve  was  striking," 
Emmy  concluded. 

A  deep  flush  overspread  Jenny's  face.  She 
turned  away  quickly  in  order  that  it  might  not 
be  seen.  Emmy  still  continued  busy  with  her 
thoughts.  It  occurred  to  her  to  be  surprised  that 
Jenny  should  be  fully  dressed.  The  surprise 
pressed  her  further  onward  with  the  narrative. 

"And  then,  of  course,  we  found  Pa.  Wasn't 
it  strange  of  him  to  do  it?  He  couldn't  have 
been  there  long.  .  .  .  He  must  have  waited  for 
you  to  go  up.  He  must  have  listened.  I  must 
find  another  place  to  keep  it,  though  he's  never 
done  such  a  thing  before  in  his  life.  He  must 
have  listened  for  you  going  up,  and  then  come 

creeping  out  here Why,  there 's  his  candle 

on  the  floor!  Fancy  that!  Might  have  set  fire 
to  the  whole  house!  See,  you  couldn't  have 
been  upstairs  long.  ...  I  thought  you  must 


CONSEQUENCES  237 

have  been,  seeing  the  fire  was  black  out.  Did 
you  go  to  sleep  in  front  of  it?  I  thought  you 
might  have  laid  a  bit  of  supper  for  us.  I  thought 
you  would  have.  But  if  you  were  asleep,  I  don't 
wonder.  I  thought  you'd  have  been  in  bed  hours. 
Did  you  hear  anything?  He  must  have  made  a 
racket  falling  off  the  chair.  What  made  you  come 
down  again?  Pa  must  have  listened  like  any- 
thing." 

"I  didn't  come  down,"  Jenny  said,  in  a  slow, 
passionless  voice.  "I  hadn't  gone  to  bed.  I 
was  out.  I'd  been  out  all  the  evening  .  .  .  since 
quarter-to-nine. ' ' 

iv 

At  first  Emmy  could  not  understand.  She 
stood,  puzzled,  unable  to  collect  her  thoughts. 

"Jenny!"  at  last  she  said,  unbelievingly.  Ac- 
cusing impulses  showed  in  her  face.  The  softer 
mood,  just  passing,  was  replaced  by  one  of  anger. 
"Well,  I  must  say  it's  like  you,"  Emmy  con- 
cluded. "I'm  not  to  have  a  moment  out  of  the 
house.  I  can't  even  leave  you  ..." 

"Half-an-hour  after  you'd  gone,"  urged  Jenny, 
"I  got  a  note  from  Keith." 

"Keith!"  It  was  Emmy's  sign  that  she  had 
noted  the  name. 

"I  told  you.  ...  He'd  only  got  the  one 
evening  in  London." 


238  NOCTURNE 

"Couldn't  he  have  come  here?" 

"He  mustn't  leave  his  ship.  I  didn't  know 
what  to  do.  At  first  I  thought  I  couldn't  go.  But 
the  man  was  waiting " 

1  'Man ! ' '  cried  Emmy.    ' ' What  man?' ' 

"The  chauffeur. " 

Emmy's  face  changed.  Her  whole  manner 
changed.  She  was  outraged. 

"Jenny!  Is  he  that  sort!  Oh,  I  warned  you. 
.  .  .  There's  never  any  good  in  it.  He'll  do 
you  no  good." 

"He's  a  captain  of  a  little  yacht.  He's  not 
what  you  think,"  Jenny  protested,  very  pale,  her 
heart  sinking  under  such  a  rebuke,  under  such 
knowledge  as  she  alone  possessed. 

' '  Still,  to  go  to  him ! ' '  Emmy  was  returned  to 
that  aspect  of  the  affair.  "And  leave  Pa!" 

"I  know.  I  know,"  Jenny  cried.  She  was  no 
longer  protective.  She  was  herself  in  need  of 
comfort.  "But  I  had  to  go.  You'd  have  gone 
yourself!"  She  met  Emmy's  gaze  steadily,  but 
without  defiance. 

"No  I  shouldn't!"  It  was  Emmy  who  became 
defiant.  Emmy's  jealousy  was  again  awake. 
"However  much  I  wanted  to  go.  I  should  have 
stayed. ' ' 

"And  lost  him!"  Jenny  cried. 

"Are  you  sure  of  him  now?"  asked  Emmy 
swiftly.  "If  he's  gone  again." 


CONSEQUENCES  239 

With  her  cheeks  crimson,  Jenny  turned  upon 
her  sister. 

"Yes,  I'm  sure  of  him.  And  I  love  him.  I 
love  him  as  much  as  you  love  Alf."  She  had 
the  impulse,  almost  irresistible,  to  add  "More!" 
but  she  restrained  her  tongue  just  in  time.  That 
was  a  possibility  Emmy  could  never  admit.  It 
was  only  that  they  were  different. 

"But  to  leave  Pa!"  Emmy's  bewildered  mind 
went  back  to  what  was  the  real  difficulty.  Jenny 
protested. 

"He  was  in  bed.  I  thought  he'd  be  safe.  He 
was  tucked  up.  Supposing  I  hadn't  gone.  Sup- 
posing I'd  gone  up  to  bed  an  hour  ago.  Still 
he'd  have  done  the  same." 

"You  know  he  wouldn't,"  Emmy  said,  very 
quietly.  Jenny  felt  a  wave  of  hysteria  pass 
through  her.  It  died  down.  She  held  herself 
very  firmly.  It  was  true.  She  knew  that  she 
was  only  defending  herself. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  in  a  false,  aggrieved 
voice.  "How  do  I  know?" 

"You  do.  He  knew  you  were  out.  He  very 
likely  woke  up  and  felt  frightened." 

"Felt  thirsty,  more  like  it!"  Jenny  exclaimed. 

"Well,  you  did  wrong,"  Emmy  said.  "How- 
ever you  like  to  put  it  to  yourself,  you  did 
wrong. ' ' 

"I  always  manage  to.     Don't  I!"     Jenny's 


240  NOCTURNE 

speech  still  was  without  defiance.  She  was 
humble.  "It's  a  funny  thing;  but  it's 
true  ..." 

"You  always  want  to  go  your  own  way,"  Emmy 
reproved. 

"Oh,  I  don't  think  that's  wrong!"  hastily  said 
Jenny.  "Why  should  you  go  anybody  else's 
way!" 

"I  don't  know,"  admitted  Emmy.  "But  it's 
safer. ' ' 

"Whose  way  do  you  go f  "  Jenny  had  stumbled 
upon  a  question  so  unanswerable  that  she  was  at 
liberty  to  answer  it  for  herself.  "I  don't  know 
whose  way  you  go  now;  but  I  do  know  whose 
way  you'll  go  soon.  You'll  go  Alf 's  way." 

"Well?"  demanded  Emmy.  "If  it's  a  good 
way?" 

"Well,  I  go  Keith's  way!"  Jenny  answered,  in 
a  fine  glow.  "And  he  goes  mine." 

Emmy  looked  at  her,  shaking  her  head  in  a 
kind  of  narrow  wisdom. 

* '  Not  if  he  sends  a  chauffeur, ' '  she  said  slowly. 
"Not  that  sort  of  man." 

v 

For  a  moment  Jenny's  heart  burned  with  in- 
dignation. Then  it  turned  cold.  If  Emmy  were 
right!  Supposing — just  supposing  .  .  .  Sav- 
agely she  thrust  doubt  of  Keith  from  her:  her 


CONSEQUENCES  241 

trust  in  him  was  forced  by  dread  into  still  warmer 
and  louder  proclamation. 

"You  don't  understand!"  she  cried.  "You 
couldn't.  You've  never  seen  him.  Wait  a  min- 
ute!" She  went  quickly  out  of  the  kitchen  and 
up  to  her  bedroom.  There,  secretly  kept  from 
every  eye,  was  the  little  photograph  of  Keith. 
She  brought  it  down.  In  anxious  triumph  she 
showed  it  to  Emmy.  Emmy's  three  years' 
seniority  had  never  been  of  so  much  account. 
"There,"  Jenny  said.  "That's  Keith.  Look  at 
him!" 

Emmy  held  the  photograph  under  the  meagre 
light.  She  was  astonished,  although  she  kept  out- 
wardly calm;  because  Keith — besides  being  ob- 
viously what  is  called  a  gentleman — looked  honest 
and  candid.  She  could  not  find  fault  with  the  face. 

"He's  very  good-looking,"  she  admitted,  in  a 
critical  tone.  "Very." 

"Not  the  sort  of  man  you  thought,"  emphasised 
Jenny,  keenly  elated  at  Emmy's  dilemma. 

"Is  he  ...  has  he  got  any  money?" 

"Never  asked  him.  No — I  don't  think  he  has. 
It  wasn't  his  chauffeur.  A  lord's." 

"There!  He  knows  lords.  .  .  .  Oh,  Jenny!" 
Emmy's  tone  was  still  one  of  warning.  "He 
won't  marry  you.  I'm  sure  he  won't." 

"Yes  he  will,"  Jenny  said  confidently.  But  the 
excitement  had  shaken  her,  and  she  was  not  the 


242  NOCTURNE 

firm  Jenny  of  custom.  She  looked  imploringly  at 
Emmy.  "8ay  you  believe  it  I"  she  begged. 
Emmy  returned  her  urgent  gaze,  and  felt  Jenny's 
arm  round  her.  Their  two  faces  were  very  close. 
"You'd  have  done  the  same,"  Jenny  urged. 

Something  in  her  tone  awakened  a  suspicion  in 
Emmy's  mind.  She  tried  to  see  what  lay  behind 
those  glowing  mysteries  that  were  so  close  to 
hers.  Her  own  eyes  were  shining  as  if  from  an 
inner  brightness.  The  sisters,  so  unlike,  so  in- 
expressibly contrary  in  every  phase  of  their  out- 
look, in  every  small  detail  of  their  history,  had 
this  in  common — that  each,  in  her  own  manner, 
and  with  the  consequences  drawn  from  differ- 
ences of  character  and  aim,  had  spent  happy  hours 
with  the  man  she  loved.  What  was  to  follow  re- 
mained undetermined.  But  Emmy's  heart  was 
warmed  with  happiness :  she  was  for  the  first  time 
filled  only  with  impulses  of  kindness  and  love  for 
Jenny.  She  would  blame  no  more  for  Jenny's 
desertion.  It  was  just  enough,  since  the  conse- 
quences of  that  desertion  had  been  remedied,  to 
enhance  Emmy's  sense  of  her  own  superiority. 
There  remained  only  the  journey  taken  by  Jenny. 
She  again  took  from  her  sister's  hand  the  little 
photograph.  Alf 's  face  seemed  to  come  between 
the  photograph  and  her  careful,  poring  scrutiny, 
more  the  jealous  scrutiny  of  a  mother  than  that 
of  a  sister. 


CONSEQUENCES  243 

"He's  rather  thin,"  Emmy  ventured,  dubiously. 
"What  colour  are  his  eyes?" 

"Blue.  And  his  hair's  brown.  .  .  .  He's 
lovely. ' ' 

"He  looks  nice,"  Emmy  said,  relenting. 

"He  is  nice.  Em,  dear  .  .  .  Say  you'd  have 
done  the  same!" 

Emmy  gave  Jenny  a  great  hug,  kissing  her  as 
if  Jenny  had  been  her  little  girl.  To  Emmy  the 
moment  was  without  alloy.  Her  own  future  as- 
sured, all  else  fell  into  the  orderly  picture  which 
made  up  her  view  of  life.  But  she  was  not  quite 
calm,  and  it  even  surprised  her  to  feel  so  much 
warmth  of  love  for  Jenny.  Still  holding  her 
sister,  she  was  conscious  of  a  quick  impulse  that 
was  both  exulting  and  pathetically  shy. 

"It's  funny  us  both  being  happy  at  once.  Isn't 
it!"  she  whispered,  all  sparkling. 

vi 

To  herself  Jenny  groaned  a  sufficient  retort. 

"I  don't  know  that  I'm  feeling  so  tremendously 
happy  my  own  self,"  she  thought.  For  the  reac- 
tion had  set  in.  She  was  glad  enough  to  bring 
about  by  various  movements  their  long-delayed 
bedward  journey.  She  was  beginning  to  feel  that 
her  head  and  her  heart  were  both  aching,  and 
that  any  more  confidences  from  Emmy  would  be 
unbearable.  And  where  Emmy  had  grown  com- 


244  NOCTURNE 

municative — since  Emmy  had  nothing  to  conceal 
— Jenny  had  felt  more  and  more  that  her  happi- 
ness was  staled  as  thought  corroded  it.  By  the 
time  they  turned  out  the  kitchen  gas  the  clock 
pointed  to  tweny  minutes  past  two,  and  the  dark- 
est hour  was  already  recorded.  In  three  more 
hours  the  sun  would  rise,  and  Jenny  knew  that 
long  before  then  she  would  see  the  sky  greying 
as  though  the  successive  veils  of  the  transforma- 
tion were  to  reveal  the  crystal  grotto.  She  pre- 
ceded Emmy  up  the  stairs,  carrying  a  candle  and 
lighting  the  way.  At  the  top  of  the  staircase 
Emmy  would  find  her  own  candle,  and  they  would 
part.  They  were  now  equally  eager  for  the  sep- 
aration, Emmy  because  she  wanted  to  think  over 
and  over  again  the  details  of  her  happiness,  and 
to  make  plans  for  a  kind  of  life  that  was  to  open 
afresh  in  days  that  lay  ahead.  Arrived  at  the 
landing  the  sisters  did  not  pause  or  kiss,  but  each 
looked  and  smiled  seriously  as  she  entered  her 
bedroom.  With  the  closing  of  the  doors  noise 
seemed  to  depart  from  the  little  house,  though 
Jenny  heard  Emmy  moving  in  her  room.  The 
house  was  in  darkness.  Emmy  was  gone ;  Pa  lay 
asleep  in  the  dim  light,  his  head  bandaged  and 
the  water  slowly  soaking  into  the  towel  pro- 
tectively laid  upon  his  chest;  in  the  kitchen  the 
ailing  clock  ticked  away  the  night.  Everything 
seemed  at  peace  but  Jenny,  who,  when  she  had 


CONSEQUENCES  245 

closed  the  door  and  set  her  candle  down,  went 
quickly  to  the  bed,  sitting  upon  its  edge  and  look- 
ing straight  before  her  with  dark  and  sober  eyes. 
She  had  much  to  think  of.  She  would  never 
forgive  herself  now  for  leaving  Pa.  It  might 
have  been  a  more  serious  accident  that  had  hap- 
pened during  her  absence;  she  could  even  plead, 
to  Emmy,  that  the  accident  might  have  happened 
if  she  had  not  left  the  house  at  all;  but  nothing 
her  quick  brain  could  urge  had  really  satisfied 
Jenny.  The  stark  fact  remained  that  she  had 
been  there  under  promise  to  tend  Pa;  and  that 
she  had  failed  in  her  acknowledged  trust.  He 
might  have  died.  If  he  had  died,  she  would  have 
been  to  blame.  Not  Pa!  He  couldn't  help  him- 
self! He  was  driven  by  inner  necessity  to  do 
things  which  he  must  not  be  allowed  to  do.  Jenny 
might  have  pleaded  the  same  justification.  She 
had  done  so  before  this.  It  had  been  a  neces- 
sity to  her  to  go  to  Keith.  As  far  as  that  went 
she  did  not  question  the  paramount  power  of 
impulse.  Not  will,  but  the  strongest  craving,  had 
led  her.  Jenny  could  perhaps  hardly  discourse 
learnedly  upon  such  things:  she  must  follow  the 
dictates  of  her  nature.  But  she  never  accused 
Pa  of  responsibility.  He  was  an  irresponsible. 
She  had  been  left  to  look  after  him.  She  had 
not  stayed;  and  ill  had  befallen.  A  bitter  smile 
curved  Jenny's  lips. 


246  NOCTURNE 

"I  suppose  they'd  say  it  was  a  punishment, " 
she  whispered.  "They'd  like  to  think  it  was." 

After  that  she  stayed  a  long  time  silent,  sway- 
ing gently  while  her  candle  flickered,  her  head 
full  of  a  kind  of  formless  musing.  Then  she  rose 
from  the  bed  and  took  her  candle  so  that  she  could 
see  her  face  in  the  small  mirror  upon  the  dressing- 
table.  The  candle  nickered  still  more  in  the 
draught  from  the  open  window;  and  Jenny  saw 
her  breath  hang  like  a  cloud  before  her.  In  the 
mirror  her  face  looked  deadly  pale ;  and  her  lips 
were  slightly  drawn  as  if  she  were  about  to  cry. 
Dark  shadows  were  upon  her  face,  whether  real 
or  the  work  of  the  feeble  light  she  did  not  think 
to  question.  She  was  looking  straight  at  her  own 
eyes,  black  with  the  dilation  of  pupil,  and  some- 
how struck  with  the  horror  which  was  her  deepest 
emotion.  Jenny  was  speaking  to  the  girl  in  the 
glass. 

"I  shouldn't  have  thought  it  of  you,'*  she  was 
saying.  "You  come  out  of  a  respectable  home 
and  you  do  things  like  this.  Silly  little  fool,  you 
are.  Silly  little  fool.  Because  you  can't  stand 
his  not  loving  you  .  .  .  you  go  and  do  that." 
For  a  moment  she  stopped,  turning  away,  her  lip 
bitten,  her  eyes  veiled.  "Oh,  but  he  does  love 
me!"  she  breathed.  "Quite  as  much  .  .  .  quite 
as  much  .  .  .  nearly  .  .  .  nearly  as  much  .  .  ." 
She  sighed  deeply,  standing  lone  in  the  centre  of 


CONSEQUENCES  247 

the  room,  her  long,  thin  shadow  thrown  upon  the 
wall  in  front  of  her.  "And  to  leave  Pal"  she 
was  thinking,  and  shaking  her  head.  "That  was 
wrong,  when  I'd  promised.  I  shall  always  know 
it  was  wrong.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  forget 
it  as  long  as  I  live.  Not  as  long  as  I  live.  And 
if  I  hadn't  gone,  I'd  never  have  seen  Keith  again 
— never !  He  'd  have  gone  off ;  and  my  heart  would 
have  broken.  I  should  have  got  older  and  older, 
and  hated  everybody.  Hated  Pa,  most  likely. 
And  now  I  just  hate  myself.  .  .  .  Oh,  it's  so 
difficult!"  She  moved  impatiently,  and  at  last 
went  back  to  the  mirror,  not  to  look  into  it  but 
to  remove  the  candle,  to  blow  it  out,  and  to  leave 
the  room  in  darkness.  This  done,  Jenny  drew  up 
the  blind,  so  that  she  could  see  the  outlines  of 
the  roofs  opposite.  It  seemed  to  her  that  for  a 
long  distance  there  was  no  sound  at  all:  only 
there,  all  the  time,  far  behind  all  houses,  some- 
where buried  in  the  heart  of  London,  there  was 
the  same  unintermittent  low  growl.  It  was  al- 
ways in  her  ears,  even  at  night,  like  a  sleepless 
pulse,  beating  steadily  through  the  silences. 

Jenny  was  not  happy.  Her  heart  was  cold.  She 
continued  to  look  from  the  window,  her  face  full 
of  gravity.  She  was  hearing  again  Keith's  voice 
as  he  planned  their  future ;  but  she  was  not  san- 
guine now.  It  all  seemed  too  far  away,  and  so 
much  had  happened.  So  much  had  happened  that 


248  NOCTURNE 

seemed  as  though  it  could  never  be  realised, 
never  be  a  part  of  memory  at  all,  so  blank  and 
sheer  did  it  now  stand,  pressing  upon  her  like 
overwhelming  darkness.  She  thought  again  of  the 
bridge,  and  the  striking  hours ;  the  knock,  the  let- 
ter, the  hurried  ride ;  she  remembered  her  supper 
and  the  argument  with  Emmy ;  the  argument  with 
Alf ;  and  her  fleeting  moods,  so  many,  so  pain- 
ful, during  her  time  with  Keith.  To  love,  to  be 
loved:  that  was  her  sole  commandment  of  life — 
how  learned  she  knew  not.  To  love  and  to  work 
she  knew  was  the  theory  of  Emmy.  But  how  dif- 
ferent they  were,  how  altogether  unlike!  Emmy 
with  Alf;  Jenny  with  Keith.  ... 

"Yes,  but  she's  got  what  she  wants,"  Jenny 
whispered  in  the  darkness.  ''That's  what  she 
wants.  It  wouldn't  do  for  me.  Only  in  this  world 
you've  all  got  to  have  one  pattern,  whether  it 
suits  you  or  not.  Else  you're  not 'right.'  'They' 
don't  like  it.  And  I'm  outside  ...  I'm  a  misfit. 
Eh,  well :  it's  no  good  whimpering  about  it.  What 
must  be,  must;  as  they  say!" 

Soberly  she  moved  from  the  window  and  began 
to  undress  in  the  darkness,  stopping  every  now 
and  then  as  if  she  were  listening  to  that  low 
humming  far  beyond  the  houses,  when  the  thought 
of  unresting  life  made  her  heart  beat  more 
quickly.  Away  there  upon  the  black  running  cur- 
rent of  the  river  was  Keith,  on  that  tiny  yacht 


CONSEQUENCES  249 

so  open  upon  the  treacherous  sea  to  every  kind 
of  danger.  And  nothing  between  Keith  and  sud- 
den, horrible  death  but  that  wooden  hulk  and  his 
own  seamanship.  She  was  Keith's:  she  belonged 
to  him;  but  he  did  not  belong  to  her.  To  Keith 
she  might,  she  would  give  all,  as  she  had  done; 
but  he  would  still  be  apart  from  her.  He  might 
give  his  love,  his  care:  but  she  knew  that  her 
pride  and  her  love  must  be  the  love  and  pride 
to  submit — not  Keith's.  Away  from  him,  re- 
leased from  the  spell,  Jenny  knew  that  she  had 
yielded  to  him  the  freedom  she  so  cherished  as  her 
inalienable  right.  She  had  given  him  her  freedom. 
It  was  in  his  power.  For  her  real  freedom  was 
her  innocence  and  her  desire  to  do  right.  It  was 
not  that  she  wanted  to  defy,  so  much  as  that  she 
could  bear  no  shackles,  and  that  she  had  no  re- 
spect for  the  belief  that  things  should  be  done 
only  because  they  were  always  done,  and  for  no 
other  reason  but  that  of  tradition.  And  she  feared 
nothing  but  her  own  merciless  judgment. 

It  was  not  now  that  she  dreaded  Emmy's  power- 
lessness  to  forgive  her,  or  the  opinion  of  any- 
body  else  in  the  world.  It  was  that  she  could  not 
forgive  herself.  Those  who  are  strong  enough  to 
live  alone  in  the  world,  so  long  as  they  are  young 
and  vigorous,  have  this  rare  faculty  of  self- 
judgment.  It  is  only  when  they  are  exhausted  that 
.they  turn  elsewhere  for  judgmnet  and  pardon. 


250  NOCTURNE 

Jenny  sat  once  again  upon  the  bed. 

"Oh  Keith,  my  dearest  ..."  she  began.  "My 
Keith  .  .  . "  Her  thoughts  flew  swiftly  to  the 
yacht,  to  Keith.  With  unforgettable  pain  she 
heard  his  voice  ringing  in  her  ears,  saw  his  clear 
eyes,  as  honest  as  the  day,  looking  straight  into 
her  own.  Pain  mingled  with  love  and  pride ;  and 
battled  there  within  her  heart,  making  a  fine 
tumult  of  sensation;  and  Jenny  felt  herself  smil- 
ing in  the  darkness  at  such  a  conflict.  She  even 
began  very  softly  to  laugh.  But  as  if  the  sound 
checked  her  and  awoke  the  secret  sadness  that 
the  tumultuous  sensations  were  trying  to  hide, 
her  courage  suddenly  gave  way. 

"Keith!"  she  gently  called,  her  voice  barely 
audible.  Only  silence  was  there.  Keith  was  far 
away — unreachable.  Jenny  pressed  her  hands  to 
her  lips,  that  were  trembling  uncontrollably.  She 
rose,  struggling  for  composure,  struggling  to  get 
back  to  the  old  way  of  looking  at  everything.  It 
seemed  imperative  that  she  should  do  so.  In  a 
forlorn,  quivering  voice  she  ventured: 

"What  a  life!    Golly,  what  a  life!" 

But  the  effort  to  pretend  that  she  could  still 
make  fun  of  the  events  of  the  evening  was  too 
great  for  Jenny.  She  threw  herself  upon  the  bed, 
burying  her  face  in  the  pillow. 

"Keith  .  .  .  oh  Keith!  .  .  ." 

THE  END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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